Record of the 76th Congress

Report Outline
Principal Achievements of 1940 Session
Revenues, Expenditures, Deficits
Government Reorganization; Political Reform
Regulatory Legislation; Farm and Labor Measures
Neutrality Revision; Aid to Allies Trade Agreement Extension
Rearmament; Conscription; Alien Control
Authority to Call the National Guard
Provision for Peacetime Consceiption
Action After 1940 Elections
Special Focus

Principal Achievements of 1940 Session

The 76th Congress made provision for a vast expansion of American military, naval, and air forces to protect the Western Hemisphere against foreign aggression. Defense legislation occupied the attention of Congress to the virtual exclusion of all other matters after Germany opened its campaign on the continent of Europe in the spring of 1940. Each new Nazi success brought huge additions to military and naval appropriations already made. The defense program was capped in September by congressional approval of a system of peace-time conscription for the first time in the history of the United States.

The President appointed a Defense Advisory Commission at the end of May and reorganized his cabinet in mid-June to put leading Republicans in charge of the defense departments. Appropriations and contract authorizations for the national defense at the 1940 session reached a total of more than $12,800,000,000. Profit limitations on war contracts were suspended, but an excess profits tax was imposed, and provision was made both for government construction of munitions plants and for taking over enterprises which fail to cooperate in the rearmament program. By broadening the income tax base and boosting tax rates, the two tax bills enacted during the session are expected to bring the Treasury additional revenues of about $9,000,000,000 during the five fiscal years 1941 to 1945.

National Defense Program; Measures Short of War

The defense appropriations by Congress are intended to provide full equipment for a modern army of 1,400,000 men and reserve equipment for 600,000 more, a combined air force of 35,000 planes of latest design, and first increments toward creation of the two-ocean navy authorized at the 1940 session. Completion of the two-ocean navy is scheduled for 1945. Under the present conscription program, which expires five years hence unless renewed by Congress, the United States is expected to have active military forces and trained reserves which will aggregate 4,000,000 men by 1945.