The United States, by adopting lend-lease became what FDR called, "The Arsenal of Democracy." The U.S. dedicated its economic resources to the smashing of Nazi Germany. Lend-lease was the logical outgrowth of the cash purchases which the Allies, and Britain in particular, had made in the United States since the beginning of the war. President Roosevelt had referred to the United States in this role as the "arsenal of democracy." With their dollar balances in 1940 approaching zero, the British could not continue purchasing vital war materials in America. The Lend-Lease Act, passed by Congress seven months after the destroyer transfer, authorized the President to procure from government facilities or elsewhere "any defense article for the government of any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States." The term "defense article" included nearly everything directly or indirectly used for war purposes. The President was also given broad power not only to sell, transfer, exchange, or lease any such article, including "defense information," but also to prescribe any kind of payment he deemed satisfactory. These flexible and general provisions, allowing the bill to be adjusted to the changing circumstances of war, were later found to be highly important to Allied strategy. Winston Churchill called it "the most unsordid act."