NATIONAL- SE.CURITY POLICY42


below our capabilities., Total-budget expenditures on national security
programs would probably reach a peak annual rate of about 70 billion
dollars during the second half of the fiscal year 1952, or about 25
percent of total national output. If such expenditures were to reach
the World War II peak burden of about 42 percent of national output,
they would amount to about 130 billion dollars. If they were to reach
the 32 percent level achieved during 1942, i.e., during the 12-months
period following Pearl Harbor (when the number of men in the armed
forces averaged 3.8 million men), they would amount to about 100
billion dollars. Such calculations are, of course, only illustrative. They
indicate quite clearly, however, the limited character of the effort
implied in the programs recommended in the report.
  5. This relatively limited character of the programs does not, of
course, mean that their impact on civilian consumption would be
negligible. In order to free the materials necessary to support the
productive effort implied in these programs (with no allowance for
stockpiling)1,the production of automobiles and of other metal-using
consumer goods would probably have to be cut below their 1950 levels
by sixty percent or more. Housing would have to be cut by more than
one-third. The production of civilian radios and television sets would
have to be cut by much more than this, if not eliminated entirely, in
order to meet military demands for electronics.
  6. Although these represent very sharp cuts in individual items
below the record-breaking levels of 1950, the general civilian con-
sumption standards which would be possible under the proposed pro-
grams could hardly be described as austere, even if the relatively
comfortable standards of World War II in this country were taken
to represent bedrock austerity. By the standards of any other country
in the world, they could only be described as luxurious. Aggregate
personal consumption in 1952, although substantially different in
composition and somewhat less satisfactory to consumers, would be
within 10 percent of the 1950 level. It would be nearly one fourth
greater than the 1944 level, and over half again as great as in 1939.
Even the production of durable consumer goods would be about
half again as great as in 1939.
   7. These broad estimates are based on the assumption that working
 hours and the proportion of the population drawn into the active
 labor force would increase considerably above recent levels, although
 not approaching the peaks of World War II. With greater increases
 in labor effort than assumed in these estimates, a substantially greater
 increase in total output could be achieved. This could provide the
 basis for a greater military production even while still maintaining
 the consumption standards outlined above (with the exception that


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