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Show (WASHINGTON " gjk and SMALL Jllses! BUSINESS jjfgfjp I Operation Build America I For some time, the nation's independent business people, voting through the National Federation of Independent Business, Bus-iness, have strongly supported what is known as "Operation Build America." This is centered on legislation legisla-tion pending in the Congress by Congressmen Joe Evins of Tennesee and Keith Sebelius of Kansas, Senators James Pearson of Kansas and Fred Harris of Oklahoma and many co-sponsors to give tax incentives incen-tives to new employment generating gen-erating enterprises that locate in rural areas. Recently the Western Conference Confer-ence of Governors, in one of the strongest documents of the second sec-ond half of this century, took up this matter. The resolution follows: The United States needs to develop a national policy on voluntary population distribution. distribu-tion. It is now projected that the population of the United States will rise from 200 million mil-lion people at present to more than 300 million people by the year 2000. Our nation has practiced population pop-ulation distribution incentives in the past through such devices de-vices as the Homestead Act. A new and fresh approach to population pop-ulation distribution at the present pres-ent time is needed. The Social and economic problems of overpopulated areas include ghettos; poverty; mass transit demands; overloaded over-loaded educational, health, and fc-National FfiliTation (jf Ir:t!epcn(l( nt nu H? recreational services; pollution of air and water; increased crime; and a growing level of individual frustration and nervous ner-vous tensions. On the other hand, underpopulated underpop-ulated areas are suffering high economic and social costs as well. These costs are brought on by an inadequate tax base and too few people to support necessary institutions on a community com-munity basis such as schools, churches, hospitals, recreational areas, etc. Environmental management and conservation become excessively exces-sively costly because of the severe population imbalance between the overpopulated States and those which are underpopulated. un-derpopulated. The Federal Government, through its inadvertent and uncoordinated un-coordinated planning and programs, pro-grams, is one of the major factors fac-tors in creating population imbalance. im-balance. There are remedies that should be attempted to alleviate allevi-ate population imbalance. Subsidized Sub-sidized low interest rati-s could he offered cn loans for industrial indus-trial expansion in underpopulated underpopu-lated areas. A revamping of the Interstate Commerce Commission Com-mission freight rates, which now make economic expansion virtually impossible in some underpopulated areas, could be adjusted to permit expansion in underdeveloped areas. It is hijh tiir.e that people not only become concerned, but upset over the neglect of ruial America. SI |