military preparedness and capabilities,” which limited the scope of the president’s authority. The original law focused on “shaping U.S. Therefore, to the extent necessary, workers and plants will have to stop making some civilian goods and begin turning out military equipment.” “This expansion cannot take place fast enough. “We cannot get all the military supplies we need now from expanded production alone,” President Harry Truman told Americans in a radio address after signing the act into law. The Defense Production Act gave the president – who later delegated this authority to Cabinet officials like the secretary of defense – broad powers to force manufacturers to make goods and supply services to support the national defense, as well as to set wages and prices and even ration consumer goods. There were also concerns about inflation during that postwar period. In 1950, America faced war in Korea, and Congress feared that growing postwar demand for consumer goods would crowd out defense production needed to face China and the Soviet Union, which both backed North Korea in the conflict. increase production of warplanes from 2,500 a year to over 300,000 by the end of the war. The War Powers acts gave the president sweeping authority to control domestic manufacturing. The Defense Production Act was passed in 1950 and modeled on the War Powers acts of 19. But as a business professor who studies strategies to maximize efficient allocation of resources, I believe when presidents invoke the act it’s often more about political theater – showing the public you’re doing something – than addressing the problem in the most effective way. While using the Defense Production Act to force companies to make baby formula would certainly be a novel use of the act, it would hardly be the first time the postwar law has been used beyond its originally intended purpose to support national defense.Īnd in fact, the law is used a lot more frequently than you might think. You might well wonder what babies going without formula has to do with defense production, which calls to mind big warships and weapons systems. He said he will direct suppliers of baby formula ingredients to prioritize delivery to formula manufacturers and control their distribution as necessary.
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