2Q MISC. PUBLICATION 570, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 



the war. Moreover, it will be greatest for the more conventional types 

 of public improvements. To plan for a volume of public expenditures 

 that would be sufficient to meet any possible future need for employ- 

 ment, it may be necessary to provide especially for more of the 

 deferable types of investment expenditures, and for still more of the 

 direct-consumption types. 



The possible volume of expenditures for useful and needed public 

 activities that lie outside the field of private enterprise is very large. 

 Public facilities such as hospitals, clinics, parks, and community 

 centers are rarely operated for profit. A great expansion of Govern- 

 ment activity in these fields could be made without competing with 

 private enterprise. The soils, forests, mines, and rivers of this coun- 

 try represent great wealth-producing assets, the maintenance and 

 improvement of which would contribute to present and future 

 national production. Some of these natural resources cannot be 

 increased or reproduced except over such long periods that private 

 investment in them is unprofitable, despite the fact that future 

 generations will be dependent upon them. If relatively heavy Gov- 

 ernment expenditures should be necessary after the war to maintain 

 full employment, emphasis can properly be given to the construction 

 of adequate hospital and other public facilities throughout the coun- 

 try and to the maintenance and improvement of natural resources. 

 No such expenditures need to be "made work" if they are carefully 

 planned in advance. 



The development of integrated programs of flood control, soil con- 

 servation, reforestation, navigation improvement, and power devel- 

 opment, such as the work of the Tennessee Valley Authority, creates 

 a demand for labor of many kinds and affords market outlets for 

 numerous kinds of construction materials and supplies. Resource 

 conservation and development programs of this general nature, espe- 

 cially where heavy construction such as the building of large dams or 

 hydroelectric works is involved, result in public expenditures similar 

 to private investments of business firms in erecting new factories 

 or substantially expanding a large public-utility system. These ex- 

 penditures should occur mostly when capital and labor are not needed 

 for the production of consumer goods or when the employment of 

 labor would least compete with private employment. 



Government payments to individual farmers to encourage them to 

 use such practices as terracing, drainage, winter cover-crop produc- 

 tion, seeding pastures, and planting wood lots can be made in such 

 manner that they are spent by their recipients largely for consump- 

 tion goods and services or for the purchase of machinery, equipment, 

 and similar semidurable goods. 



The type of program that will contribute most to the maintenance 

 of employment will depend in part on the particular segment of the 

 private economy which appears to be sagging most from a lack of 

 private expenditures. 



The provision of publicly financed housing for low-income families 

 who cannot afford adequate houses at the price or rent which private 

 builders must receive in order to make a profit, represents a large 

 field in which proper Government spending may be able to con- 

 tribute to the stabilization of an important industry which is cus- 

 tomarily characterized by wide fluctuations in employment and 

 output. Ways and means of encouraging an expansion in private 



