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Show WICT03Y LOSS " BOHE-l ?2SUE $60113 E0DI10S3Y By 1LU It. GAMBLE National Director, War Finance Division, V. S. Treasury The Victory Loan, now under way, Is the crucial test of our war finance program. "We must not' only raise the $11 billion required by the Treasury Treas-ury but we must do it in such a manner man-ner as to avoid the danger of inflation infla-tion and to make secure the Peace for which over a quarter of a million mil-lion of our-men have given their lives. That is why we are asking for $4 billion from individuals, $2 billion of it from the sale of Series E bonds. Why is this money needed? Briefly, Brief-ly, the reasons may be summarized I A- ' p Ted It. Gamble as follows: to bring our veterans veter-ans home and give them their Clustering - out pay, to maintain our armies of occupation, oc-cupation, to take care of our sick and wounded veterans, vet-erans, to make prompt settlement settle-ment of our cancelled can-celled war contracts, con-tracts, and for other necessary governmental expenditures ex-penditures during the next few months. The Budget Bureau recently estimated esti-mated total Federal Expenditures for the 1946 fiscal year at $66.4 billion, bil-lion, or $33.7. billion below 1945. Re-', ceipts were estimated at $36 billion, but these may be reduced somewhat by the new tax bill. This leaves a deficit of $30.4 billion, which must be met by Treasury borrowing. It is in order to help meet this deficit that the Treasury decided on the Victory Loan, the last big nublic drive for funds. As we enter this Victory Loan, I'd like to review briefly the accom- J plishments of our war financing program. pro-gram. From May 1, 1941, when the program started, to October 1, 1945, we raised the huge sum of $207 billion. bil-lion. Furthermore, we raised this money through a plan of voluntary savings at the lowest interest cost of any nation engaged in the war, and at the lowest selling expense ever recorded. In the first seven war loan drives, we set total quotas of $95 billion for all investors, and sold $135,749,000,-000 $135,749,000,-000 in war loan bonds. ' Every loan was oversubscribed. Billions more were sold in the interim periods between be-tween drives. We have sold these bonds to more than 85,000,000 Americans. Amer-icans. By the time this loan is over, we will have sold one billion individual individ-ual pieces of the popular Series E bonds alone. Where did this money come from? Our figures show that individuals provided the Treasury with $49 billion bil-lion net out of the $98 billion in new funds that has become available to them since May 1, 1941 and most of the remainder went into cash savings sav-ings or commercial bank accounts. Insurance companies and savings banks invested all of the $22 billion In. new funds that they received. State and local governments invested invest-ed $5 billion of th $6 billion available. avail-able. Private corporations had $39 billion of new funds from current surpluses and we obtained $28 billions bil-lions of it. Most of the remainder was needed by them for expanded wartime operations. Federal agencies agen-cies and trust funds invested all of their $17 billion of new funds in government gov-ernment securities. In .short, up to the end of the Seventh Sev-enth War Loan, non-bank investors provided the government with $121 billion net of the $207 billion it had to borrow since May 1, 1941, the balance bal-ance of $85 billion being absorbed by commercial Federal Reserve banks, most of it in open market purchases. Except for the investment of a limited lim-ited portion of their savings deposits, depos-its, we have not permitted the banks to subscribe directly to war loan securiites in the last five war bond drives, nor in the current Victory Loan. One of the most . significant achievements of our program is the widespread distribution of the public debt. Millions of people who never before saved a penny in their lives, now own savings bonds. It is estimated esti-mated that three-quarters of the Series E bonds sold to individuals were acquired by persons earning $5000 a year or less. Today, individuals indi-viduals hold almost one-fourth of the total Federal debt outstanding. An even larger proportion of the interest inter-est paid out on this debt will go to individuals. Obviously, this will have a tremendous impact on postwar post-war purchasing power. Investing in Victory Bonds will build a second economy for the future. fu-ture. We cannot afford to slump back into indifference and selfishness If we are to keep faith with those who have paid most dearly so that we could live in a free and peaceful world. We can and should buy Victory Vic-tory Bonds to the limit of our ability if for no other reason than to express ex-press our gratitude to our fighting men. They have done their job, and have done it well. It is up to us to finish ours, so that they may come back to the kind of an America they dreamed about a' land of opportunity opportu-nity with full employment, full production pro-duction and high income. The Victory Vic-tory Loan is our opportunity to express ex-press again our faith in America. |