[ Released February 14, 1963. Dated February 11, 1963 ]
Memorandum to: The Secretary of State; The Secretary of the Treasury; The Secretary of Defense; The Secretary of the Interior; The Secretary of Agriculture; The Secretary of Commerce; The Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare; The Director of the Bureau of the Budget; The Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers; The Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System; The President of the Export-Import Bank of Washington; The Governor of Farm Credit Administration; The Chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board; The Administrator of the General Services Administration; The Administrator of the Housing and Home Finance Agency; The Chairman of the Interstate Commerce Commission; The Administrator of the Small Business Administration; The Administrator of the Veterans' Administration:
I am transmitting herewith to the agency heads listed above copies of the Report of the Committee on Federal Credit Programs. This Report not only provides a valuable appraisal of the past experience of Federal credit programs in helping to meet our national goals, but also contains recommendations which should be very helpful in providing a framework for the further evolution of these programs in accord with the changing requirements of an expanding economy, fully consistent with the maintenance of strong and active private markets, and subject to effective review and control.
I suggest that all departments and agencies administering loans, loan guarantee and insurance programs (including related grant programs) be guided by the principles outlined in the Report in administering their present programs and especially in proposing any new or expanded credit authority. I am asking the Director of the Bureau of the Budget to take the lead in assuring an effective and equitable application of those guidelines.
As a further step to carry out the Committee's recommendations, I am requesting the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, as part of the Council's role in advising me on economic policy, to organize, under his chairmanship, an advisory committee to review the special economic problems that may arise from time to time in each of the major areas involving important domestic credit aids.
I am also asking the Secretary of the Treasury both to participate in the work of the advisory committee dealing with special economic problems and, as part of his general responsibility for administering debt management and for reviewing the borrowing operations of these agencies, to take special responsibility for assuring that any borrowing arrangements undertaken by these agencies are consistent with overall monetary and debt management policies.
JOHN F. KENNEDY
Note: The Committee was established on March 28, 1962, under the chairmanship of the Secretary of the Treasury. The report, transmitted to the President November :27, 1962, was released February 13, 1963 (Government Printing Office, 67 pp.).
A White House summary, released on the same date, noted that the report emphasized the following points: (1) that Government-financed credit programs should supplement or stimulate private lending rather than substitute for it; (2) that regular reviews of existing credit programs were needed on the same basis as the review of other Federal programs, since they are essentially instruments of public policy and must be judged on a basis of how effectively and economically they meet national objectives.
John F. Kennedy, Memorandum on the Report of the Committee on Federal Credit Programs. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/236953