White House Press Release, Statement by President Harry S. Truman

300 1694 IMMEDIATE RELEASE JULY 1, 1948 STATEMENT BY THD PRESIDENT I have today signed S. 2790, "To amend the Servicemen's Readjust- ment Act of 1944, as amended, and for other purposes". For reasons which are quite understandable, the Republican leaders in the House of Representatives insisted upon calling this measure a "housing" bill. But as a housing bill, it is, as the Vice-Chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee on Housing truthfully said, "practically nothing at all". In this case, as in many others, the 80th Congress has failed miserably to meet the urgent needs of the people of the United States. I consider it to be the duty of the President to inform the people as to the actual facts on these vital issues. That is why I have issued, and shall continue to issue, statements commenting on legislation passed by the Congress. This so-called "housing" bill is a hasty patchwork. It was passed by the Congress in the final hours of the session, after the Republican leadership refused to permit the House of Representatives to vote upon the Taft-Ellender-Wagner housing bill. This bill bears no resemblance to the comprehensive housing program included in the Taft- Ellender-"lagner bill. It fails to provide for farm housing or for slum clearance. It fails to provide for housing research, for financial assistance to large-scale home construction, or for encouraging large-scale produc- tion of prefabricated housing. It fails completely to aid in meeting our greatest housing need -- low-cost rental housing. It makes no provision for publicly- assisted low-rent housing -- or, in fact, for any rental housing. Contrasted with the Taft-Ellender-iagner housing bill, this measure was properly labeled in the Congress as the "teeny-weeney" housing bill. This bill does two things. First, it increases the funds available for the Government purchase of home mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration and restores the authority to purchase mortgages guaranteed under the G.I. Act, which the Congress allowed to lapse in 1947. This is the so-called "secondary mortgage market", which is designed to encourage the supply of private credit to home buyers. Second, the bill purports to liberalize the Government's authority to insure mortgages for veterans' housing cooperatives. But even in these respects the bill is seriously defective. with respect to the secondary mortgage market the bill repeals the present authority of the Government to purchase FHA insured mortgages on rental properties. Thus, it actually eliminates an existing aid to urgently needed rental housing. With respect to veterans' housing cooperatives the bill is practically worthless. It purports to aid veterans' cooperatives by authorizing the Federal Housing Administration to insure 95 per cent loans to veterans' housing cooperatives. But it does not change the applicable cost limita- tion of $1,350 per room, established in 1938. Since builders are now (OVER)