EXPANSION POSSIBLE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27277, 31 December 1949, Page 5

EXPANSION POSSIBLE

Social Security Programme

Report To Mr Truman

NZPA—Copyright . WASHINGTON, Rec. 11 p.m. Dec. 29. The United States could afford a considerably expanded social security programme without impairing its economic stability or weakening its growth potential, said the Council of Economic Advisers in a report to President Truman today. The report recommended that the ultimate objective should be toward making social security withdrawals from economy roughly balance the contemporary cost of benefit payments. “We also believe that as the coverage becomes more general, the larger part of social security. receipts should be obtained through general revenues rather than payroll taxes,” the report added.

The council summarised trends in the Government’s attitude toward business as first, a firm conviction that the whole American economy could, and should, continue to grow; secondly, the realisation that efforts to promote expansion of total production and income of economy were more significant than measures to “ redistribute” current production; thirdly, the fuller realisation that the flow of income to different parts of the economy should be viewed as an economic, no less than a social, problem: fourthly, an affirmative approach to business in place of a purely negative or policing function; fifthly, a trend away from specific controLs over business; sixthly, greater reliance on private enterprise in promoting stability and growth.