in order to gain congressional and presidential approval of funding, for a navy that they felt concern for both the age of vessels in the us fleet and the lack of new ship construction, they made some fairly simple economic arguments. stressing, both publicly and privately, that new ship construction would enhance employment figures substantively because shipyard records indicated that 85% of construction funds were spent on labor costs and that if the anticipated public works funding program, national industrial recovery act (nira), were used for ship construction the contracts for new ships could be awarded within 90 days of authorization with actual construction beginning almost immediately thereafter.