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"The Citizen and the Republican Party, " 1962
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4525770
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"The Citizen and the Republican Party, " 1962
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Gerald R. Ford Congressional Papers
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1962-12-31
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1962
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1962
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The original documents are located in Box D15, folder "The Citizen and the Republican
Party, 1962" of the Ford Congressional Papers: Press Secretary and Speech File at the
Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
Copyright Notice
The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of
photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. The Council donated to the United
States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections.
Works prepared by U.S. Government employees as part of their official duties are in the public
domain. The copyrights to materials written by other individuals or organizations are presumed to
remain with them. If you think any of the information displayed in the PDF is subject to a valid
copyright claim, please contact the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
1962 Only Only capy
2100 and
The Citizen and the Republican Party
HON. GERAID R. FORD, JR.
Much of the mail coming into my Congressional office from Michigan residents
reflects a sense of frustration at the domestic and foreigh policies of the present
Administration and the question, What can I do?" is often asked. It is an unfortunate
thing when citizens of our nation begin to feel that their government has become a thing
apart from them. While I ordinarily attempt to evaluate every problem and issue in terms
of what is best for my constituents and for the Nation irrespective of party position,
this year I have come to the conclusion that the only way the American people can have
genuine peace with honor through strength abroad, and the only way they can enjoy
prosperity in conjunction with their individual dignity and worth at home, is to elect
a Republican Congress in the all-important elections of 1962.
Here in Michigan, as throughout the nation, there is a different approach among
Republicans to some specific issues in domestic and foreign policy. However, there are
areas of common agreement far surpassing the synthesis found in the other major political
party today. As Senator Barry Goldwater, Governor Nelson Rockefeller and former Vice-
President Richard Nixon can share a national platform on any topic with a common thread
of basic agreements, so too can the most so-called *liberal" Republican in Michigan
agree with the more "oonservative" Republican as to the reasons why our party must be
placed in charge of the future affairs of our state before bankrupcy and ruin become
the legacy of future Michigan generations.
To me, the key principles which bind Republicans together are immeasureably more
important than any disagreements which may tend to keep some apart. They include:
1. Freedom of the individual, with equal rights and opportunity for all, is the
key to the greatness of our nation. While the state must fulfill its obligation to
assist those of its citizens who are in genuine need, individual initiative and
resourcefulness must be constantly encouraged.
GERALD FORD LIBRARY
Digitized from Box D15 of The Ford Congressional Papers: Press Secretary and Speech File at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
-- 2 --
2. A free enterprise economy is essential to the continuation of our free
society. Thus, government regulation must foster and not hinder the growth of
that economy and the development of new opportunities for employment.
3. The burden of taxation of Michigan and of the nation must be lightened
where possible and practical. Reductions in taxes can be most effectively
accomplished by the elimination of non-essential governmental expenditures. Economy
in government at all levels must replace extravegance and waste.
4. Ever-increasing centralization of power and authority is entirely
inconsistent with the preservation of our democratic way of life. Governmental
authority must be decentralized. This can best be done if Michigan' S state, county
and local governments reassume their fundamental responsibilities to their citizens.
5. The United States of America must continue to be the bulwark of liberty
throughout the world. Our leadership must be based not on the policy of meeting
aggression on the terms of the aggressor, but rather by an effective military posture
of mixed forces and the willingness to commit these forces where necessary to deter
Soviet aggression anywhere in the world.
Thus the Republican party can not be characterized by words like "liberal" or
"conservative". The late Senator Arthur Vandenberg once said, "What is a conservative?
At one point the dictionary says 'one who seeks to prevent loss, decay or injury, and
who protects and preserves.' In that sense, I want my party to be conservative.
...
But at another point the dictionary says that a conservative is 'one #11 opposed to
change or progress.' In that sense I do not want my party to be conservative. If it
is static, it will die."
In looking at the first eleven months of government under the New Frontier and
the policies followed by the Republican leadership in Congress and in other national,
state and local levels in our nation, I can point to several concrete examples of just
why the Republican Party offers the best hope for the citizen--be he laborer, businessman,
or in any other walk of life.
GERALD FORD LIBRARY
-- 3 --
In Federal Aid to Education legislation, the Republican party has repeatedly
endorsed efforts to allocate federal funds to those school districts where maximum
need exists and where supreme local effort has been made in vain to solve problems on
a local level. During the Eisenhower Administration, some such legislation was enacted,
but the New Frontier advocated a completely new concept in education legislation which
would make the federal government in principle responsible for education in every facet
at every level of learning. HEW estimates that some 607,000 classrooms must be built
during the deade of the 60' S to take care of added enrollment, e xisting backlogs and
replacement of obsolete facilities. At present, the average annual construction of new
classrooms on a local school district basis has reached almost
are
70,000-which would mean 100,000 more classrooms than 11 necessary under current
construction conditions during The next In years.
No provision was made in the 1961 legislative proposals of the Administration which
would in any way reward those school districts which have themselves paid for needed
improvements in their educational systems. As a matter of fact, the suspicion is that
local school districts may reduce their efforts if general Federal aid to education
were to become an actuality at this time. Here in Michigan we would particularly be
injured if school districts or States which hold back on tax revenue in order to pirate
our industry would be rewarded under these circumstances.
The advocates of general Federal aid for education have, in short, made no
successful effort to justify current legislation on the basis of either need or local
effort of both. Republicans wished only to aid the of 1% of the school districts of
our nation in true need and those who had exerted all possible local effort.
Republicans in Congress also showed the varying philosophies between, rather than
among, the political parties as far as the recession and anti-recession measures were
concerned. After the sound and fury of the election campaign and preliminary pronouncement
by Administration leaders about "the depths of the depression" and the firm action that
had to be taken to bring prosperity to the American people once more, the actual experience
of the American economy once more proved that the private enterprise system prevailed.
so called
We emerged from the recession without the aid of one anti-recession measure. Republicans
generally supported ADC extension and extension of unemployment compensation benefits
as temporary stopgap remedies, but otherwise, had the justified faith that the economy
would emerge of its own volition.
Meanwhile, the Administration and the majority leadership in the Congress enacted an
Area Redevelopment bill which was one of the most ineffective and ill-conceived pieces
of legislation emerging from the New Frontier. A housing bill equally expensive and
ineffective in its long-range effects was passed, with a total of $8.8 billion in back-
door spending 10 written into the bill. In its economic legislation, the 87th Congress
consistently trampled traditional concepts of interstate commerce regulation, leaving the
way open for new Federal water pollution enforcement provisions applying to all waters
in every State, even though the pollution and its effects are entirely intrastate.
The results of this have been an expansion of governmental expenditures now and in
the future. The American taxpayer, cheered by President Eisenhower' S preliminary estimate
showing a balanced budget for fiscal year 1962, looked up 9 months later and found that
his equity in America had been rudely shaken by the following events:
1. Actions of Congress will lead to an increase of $12.5 billion in new obligational
authority over the estimates of former President Eisenhower for fiscal year 1962. Mean-
while, some $19.5 billion in identifiable back-door spending was included in the authoriz-
ation bills enacted during 1961, leaving a total of some $113 billion as this session' S
contribution to Federal expenditures.
2. The cost of civilian employment in the executive branch of the Federal
Government reached its all-time high at the end of fiscal year 1961. The total annual
MAY
Federal expenditures for its civilian payroll reached $13.6 billion, and an additional
in
16,700 employees joined the New Frontier in July, 1961, alone. The Administration then
became October penny after wise imobiating and pound the foolish Congrams in dismi for ssing more several x more security spending officials from January (An the to
September. This John come- appearance casts a shalow as To The
State Depa tment and in vetoing postal longevity legislation to try to recoup some of
validate of the new Fronteer efforts to save The after all Compress ent the
the billions thrown away by unsound legislation mentioned above.
Kennedy budget by over #2 bellion much more could have been saved if This Lconony attutude previded Carles
3. A projected surplus of $100 million for F.Y. 1961 was permitted to lapse
a deficit of over $3 billion--while a projected surplus of $1.5 billion for F.Y. 1962
now turns out to be a deficit approaching $7 billion. Action by Republicans and some
5
sonservative Democrats did hold down spending somewhat. They rejected $8 billion
requested in back-door appropriations for foreign aid while holding to the concept of
necessary long range foreign aid planning. A $325 million school construction bill was
a bureaucrate monstorosts
defeated in the House. A gigantic agricultural bill, amounting to some $12 15
annually by Farm Bureau estimates, was rejected in Committee. However, the total 1961
Congressional authorizations for new obligational authority and back-door spending
amounted to $628 for every man, woman and child in the United States. This commite the
citizens of Grand Rapids, Michigan, to some $111 million and the citizens of Michigan
to 4.9 billion dollars in spending merely through the actions of the New Frontier and
the 87th Congress. What the taxpayers of our state could do with this money on a local
level gives new directions to the imagination.
4. As the ranking Republican member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee,
I backed the Administration in its requests geared to giving us a stronger defense.
While I would have prefered a foreign policy more along the lines of the past Republican
Administration, which made amply clear the fact that we not only had appropriate weapons
of retaliation but also that we would not hesitate to use them if the need arose, I
felt that only through a position of strength could the United States successfully meet
betterly
the challenge of atheistic Communism. However, I was disappointed that the Administration
at least in part
refused to hold down nondefense spending to compensate for this increase of almost
$6.5 billion in the defense budget since January.
We must guard not only against the Soviet threat in a military way, but we must
also have an America which develops with determination its productive power. American
can and must face up to the hard fact that if our free society is to be preserved, we
as a nation can afford neither the luxury of inadequate defense nor an unsound economy
stemming from habitual unbalanced budgets. This nation must reject the 1111 philosophy
that our only choice in order to prevent military surrender to the Russians is to spend
ourselves into an economic and political defeat.
On May 24, 1957, Khrushchev stated that "we do not intend to blow up the capitalist
world with bombs. If we catch up with the United States in per capita production of meat,
-- 6
butter and milk we will have hit the pillar of capitalism with the most powerful torpedo
yet." Thus inflationary pressures resulting from defense spending for spending' S sake
or from unsound nondefense expenditures could cripple our economic and military strength
alike.
The Republican Party, here in Michigan and in the nation, is geared toward a
sound policy of fiscal responsibility at home while meeting the genuine needs of the
militarily
American citizenry. In foreign policy, it advocates strength ********, firmness
diplomatically, and an understanding of our aims for victory in the Cold War among
the American people. This is in refreshing and marked contrast with the policies of
the other political party in America, which seeks to neglect the creeping hours of time
to the extent that our Nation may someday be faced with the alternative of runaway
inflation or rigid governmental controls domestically, and perhaps with an international
crisis rendering our deterrent incredible and exposing ourselves to the anslaught of
whatever minions communism deems to be expendable.
No label today can characterize either of our major political parties. However,
the Republican party is liberal enough to march with the times and to dare new answers
to new problems and to use the power and strength and initiative of Government to help
citizens help themselves. It is conservative enough to apply to the issues of the day
principles of our American republic as they are and not as some people wish they would be.
Edmund Burke once said that "the people never give up their liberties but under
some delusion." The Republican Party seeks today to tanish delusions which would blind
American citizens to their stake in government, and, more importantly, to their governm
ment' S stake in them. This is why a victory for our party, in the state and in the
Nation, becomes so vital in 1962.
1 GERALD LIBRARY FORD
ITEM TRANSFER REFERENCE FORM
The item described below has been removed to:
New File Location:
audio Visual materials
Document Description: 425 8 X10 BW Photos
50
8.5
Envelope labelled GRF Photos 1962-1966"
250
400
Old File Location: Congressional Speeches, Box 22, NOW in
new arrangement, Congressional Speeches, Box 12, Terruary, 1956 to
april, 1962
By Dennis Lakomy & Date much 6, 1978
NLFP - 11/4/77