Word: billion
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...economy drive died with it. In passing the military bill the Senate did bravely lop about $1 billion off the House's bill (providing for a 48-group instead of the House's 58-group Air Force). A few money bills, including foreign military aid, remained for the Senate to work on and there might be some further whittling when House and Senate conferees got together to settle on final sums. But there was little chance that any important cuts would be made...
From the Truman Democrats' side, the argument was that hardly any of the budget items really could be touched. The biggest outlay, a total of $32 billion, Harry Truman said, was for wars, past and future. The U.S., already in the red a quarter of a trillion dollars, would plunge anywhere from $3 billion to $8 billion deeper in the red by the end of this fiscal year...
Many appliance makers were feeling the effect of the expiration of consumer credit controls (installment credit rose to an alltime peak of $9.3 billion in July). General Electric Co.'s President Charles E. Wilson said that the outlook was bright (see below) and that G.E.'s appliance business had picked up more than it usually does in the summer. Other appliance makers, who had cut back for lack of orders in the spring, were once more allocating some goods and calling back furloughed workers...
Only ten years ago, he said, when the national income was $70 billion, people thought it fantastic to talk of its ever reaching $125 billion. "Now it has exceeded $200 billion. I don't think President Truman's goal of a $300 billion national income is fantastic at all, provided we maintain the American system about the way it is today. If we get farther over on the side of a planned economy, or socialism, I don't think...
...reach the $300 billion level, said Wilson, the labor unions, which had already achieved "monopolistic" power to "dominate and control the economy," would have to exercise statesmanship. "If the unions strive only to outdo one another in their demands, and Government-by-edict enforces an endless series of wage increases without regard to industry's costs, it will lead, inevitably, to nationalization of industry...