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3. The home builders of the United States are under enormous pressure to get houses built to meet the current housing shortage. The proposed plan will not give them additional tools to do the job. It is, in fact, based on extending greater Governmental control over the industry. Home builders cannot be expected to increase production by having more controls imposed. Under increasing Government control you cannot expect maximum production, and this is imperative today if veterans and other families are to be housed. Actually, the Government is shifting from facilitating construction of housing through provision of sound aids, to greater control of housing. This is an ominous development. It is carried a step further by the reorganization plan.

4. One of the reasons given for the reorganization plan is that it will advance efficiency. But it is obvious that there will be no reduction in operating expenses of any of the agencies involved. There will merely be placed over them a superagency duplicating in most instances the functions of the existing agencies and in many other instances duplicating the work now done by various other Government departments such as the Department of Commerce or the Civilian Production Administration.

I wonder how many members of this committee have ever seen an organization chart of the NHA-the agency you are asked to make permanent. As an example, I would like to place in the record the NHA organization chart as of May 20, 1946. This illustrates plainly what I mean when I talk about superagency and duplication. I think you will be interested in it, and suggest that you look it Notice all the divisions, subdivisions, units, offices, branches, and subbranches. Many divisions, sections, and functions are certainly duplications of work being done by other agencies at the present time. This is the organization you are asked to perpetuate in the name of economy and efficiency.

over.

5. During the war, NHA was set up as a temporary war agency to "program" war housing. It was its job to assist in the proper distribution of scarce building materials, and to see that war housing was assigned to the areas that needed it. That was its only function. Now that function has ceased, and with it, we believe the agency should cease. Instead, it is asking to have its life made secure and that it be allowed to assume new duties. The agency served a useful purpose in war; it has no place in peacetime.

It is of interest to note that the building industry is virtually united against the proposal to make NHA permanent; only the Government people are for it. That is a point well worth some thought.

6. Although the plan is advanced as covering "the main activities of the Government relating to housing," it falls very short of this stated goal. It still leaves out the Veterans' Administration, with its important GI program.

It is estimated that from 3 to 5 million homes will be built in the next 10 years for the veterans of World War II. Veterans' houses may amount to as much as 30 to 50 percent of the whole market. Much of this housing will be financed under the GI bill of rights. But this tremendous part of the housing market is not to be touched by the reorganization plan.

The plan, therefore, does not consolidate the housing activities of the Government for efficiency. It merely groups public housing with two of the well-established and popular private home-financing agencies, and will by so doing hamper and divert these agencies from doing the jobs they were set up to do for American families wishing to purchase a home.

7. Finally, we feel that this attempt to set up a far-reaching agency virtually snatches from the hands of the Congress the decision as to whether such a step should be taken. It does so with little or no opportunity for the Congress to study the intricate questions involved. The plan goes even beyond the proposal in the Wagner-Ellender-Taft housing bill, which is still before the House, and which we likewise opposed. That measure embraces changes in the Government housing agencies, and is pending now before the House Banking and Currency Committee. Also pending before that committee is H. R. 6025, introduced by Congressman Wolcott, which would provide a different type of housing organization and also make certain changes in exisiting housing functions. Failure to disapprove the plan would have the effect of foreclosing the House from full consideration of these bills or any amendments or substitutes and would veto the action of the Senate on S. 1592. The reorganization plan substitutes a preemptory administrative decision in lieu of careful congressional consideration of a highly controversial question, and its approval could only have a tremendously detrimental effect on the home-building industry, and through it, on our entire economy.

3. The home builders of the United States are under enormous pressure to get houses built to meet the current housing shortage. The proposed plan will not give them additional tools to do the job. It is, in fact, based on extending greater Governmental control over the industry. Home builders cannot be expected to increase production by having more controls imposed. Under increasing Government control you cannot expect maximum production, and this is imperative today if veterans and other families are to be housed. Actually, the Government is shifting from facilitating construction of housing through provision of sound aids, to greater control of housing. This is an ominous development. It is carried a step further by the reorganization plan.

4. One of the reasons given for the reorganization plan is that it will advance efficiency. But it is obvious that there will be no reduction in operating expenses of any of the agencies involved. There will merely be placed over them a superagency duplicating in most instances the functions of the existing agencies and in many other instances duplicating the work now done by various other Government departments such as the Department of Commerce or the Civilian Production Administration.

I wonder how many members of this committee have ever seen an organization chart of the NHA-the agency you are asked to make permanent. As an example, I would like to place in the record the NHA organization chart as of May 20, 1946. This illustrates plainly what I mean when I talk about superagency and duplication. I think you will be interested in it, and suggest that you look it over. Notice all the divisions, subdivisions, units, offices, branches, and subbranches. Many divisions, sections, and functions are certainly duplications of work being done by other agencies at the present time. This is the organization you are asked to perpetuate in the name of economy and efficiency.

5. During the war, NHA was set up as a temporary war agency to "program" war housing. It was its job to assist in the proper distribution of scarce building materials, and to see that war housing was assigned to the areas that needed it. That was its only function. Now that function has ceased, and with it, we believe the agency should cease. Instead, it is asking to have its life made secure and that it be allowed to assume new duties. The agency served a useful purpose in war; it has no place in peacetime.

It is of interest to note that the building industry is virtually united against the proposal to make NHA permanent; only the Government people are for it. That is a point well worth some thought.

6. Although the plan is advanced as covering "the main activities of the Government relating to housing," it falls very short of this stated goal. It still leaves out the Veterans' Administration, with its important GI program.

It is estimated that from 3 to 5 million homes will be built in the next 10 years for the veterans of World War II. Veterans' houses may amount to as much as 30 to 50 percent of the whole market. Much of this housing will be financed under the GI bill of rights. But this tremendous part of the housing market is not to be touched by the reorganization plan.

The plan, therefore, does not consolidate the housing activities of the Government for efficiency. It merely groups public housing with two of the well-established and popular private home-financing agencies, and will by so doing hamper and divert these agencies from doing the jobs they were set up to do for American families wishing to purchase a home.

7. Finally, we feel that this attempt to set up a far-reaching agency virtually snatches from the hands of the Congress the decision as to whether such a step should be taken. It does so with little or no opportunity for the Congress to study the intricate questions involved. The plan goes even beyond the proposal in the Wagner-Ellender-Taft housing bill, which is still before the House, and which we likewise opposed. That measure embraces changes in the Government housing agencies, and is pending now before the House Banking and Currency Committee. Also pending before that committee is H. R. 6025, introduced by Congressman Wolcott, which would provide a different type of housing organization and also make certain changes in exisiting housing functions. Failure to disapprove the plan would have the effect of foreclosing the House from full consideration of these bills or any amendments or substitutes and would veto the action of the Senate on S. 1592. The reorganization plan substitutes a preemptory administrative decision in lieu of careful congressional consideration of a highly controversial question, and its approval could only have a tremendously detrimental effect on the home-building industry, and through it, on our entire economy.

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