What America Can Have | Henry A. Wallace February 7, 1944

Henry A. Wallace

crossposted from newdeal.feri.org

Delivered at San Francisco on Monday, February 7 1944
From Henry A. Wallace, Democracy Reborn (New York, 1944), edited by Russell Lord, p. 24.

At Los Angeles I sketched briefly what America wants. Here at San Francisco I propose to describe what we can get if we really want it badly enough to plan and work for it.
Let me first do what I can to kill the myth that the gigantic war debt will stand in our way. We can pay the interest an this debt and have a standard of living at least fifty percent higher than in the decade of the thirties. With seasonably full employment we can have a national yearly income of more than 130 billion dollars. We can produce 170 billion dollars of goods and services annually. This is no dream, for in 1943 we produced mare than 190 billion dollars of goods and services. With such an income we can carry the interest on our war debt and still have a whole lot more left over than we had at the top of the boom in 1929. The interest charge on all debts, private and government, in 1944 will represent only seven percent of our national income or no more than in the decade of the twenties. continue reading