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House Floor Speech President Johnson's AFL-CIO Speech, December 13, 1967
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4526074
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House Floor Speech President Johnson's AFL-CIO Speech, December 13, 1967
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Gerald R. Ford Congressional Papers
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1967
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The original documents are located in Box D23, folder "House Floor Speech President
Johnson's AFL-CIO Speech, December 13, 1967" 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States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections.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.
Digitized from Box D23 of the Ford Congressional Papers: Press Secretary and Speech File at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
--FOR RELEASE ON RECEIPT--
December 13, 1967
Remarks Prepared for Delivery on The House Floor
The Great Society of Lyndon Johnson has become a runaway locomotive with
a wild-eyed engineer at the throttle.
The American people can be thankful that the 90th Congress has slowed down
this locomotive which is hurtling down the track toward national bankruptcy, the
highest interest rates in a hundred years, devaluation of the dollar through a
steady surge of inflation if not by official action in the money markets, and a
papering over of national problems with paper dollars--money that shrinks in
value with each passing month.
The man in the White House can only be described as wild when he talks of
a $35 billion deficit at the same time that his budget bureau director places
it at $19.8 billion.
He can only be described as wild when he continues talking about greater and
greater spending on social welfare schemes at the same time that he talks of a
$35 billion deficit and talks to business and labor about the need for wage and
price restraint. The President irresponsibly threatens to put the American
economy and the American people in the straight jacket of wage and price controls.
The President's leas to business and labor actually are meaningless because
business and labor are trapped by Johnson inflation. It is Lyndon Johnson and he
alone who has wrecked the price stability we enjoyed under the Eisenhower
Administration He did it with his irresponsible spending policies--his guns-and-
butter\policy in time of war.
The President said in his speech to the AFL-CIO: "I told the businessmen
they should not point the finger of blame at you, and I say that you should not
point the finger of blame at them." He's right. The blame rests with just one
man-Lyndon Johnson--the man who rejected every suggestion from his advisers and
leading economists in early 1966 that he fight inflation with spending cuts or a
tax increase then. The President is a Lyndon-come-lately to the inflation fight.
The best way to fight inflation is to restrain irresponsibility in the White House.
(more)
BERALD FORD LIBRARY
-2-
Mr. Johnson says he wants a great Congress again, one like the 89th.
President Johnson called the 89th "my Congress." That was completely natural.
He owned it. It gave him everything he asked for and more. It was a runaway
Congress.
Now Mr. Johnson again wants a Congress like the 89th. He wants a two-thirds
Democratic majority in the House again. He wants to return to one-man government.
I agree with Mr. Johnson that the 90th Congress was a good Congress and a
productive Congress.
Republicans and Democrats in 1967 joined together for the good of the country
to cut federal spending $4.1 billion and resisted President Johnson's income tax
increase as the wrong medicine for the economy at this time.
Republicans and Democrats teamed up to launch a three-year, $428 million
attack on air pollution on a regional basis, a three-year authorization for a
revamped Teacher Corps to benefit slum children, a responsible approach to federal
school aid and a war on crime, a Comprehensive Health Act giving states and local
communities the power to determine priorities on use of federal funds to fight
rats, communicable diseases and narcotics addiction.
Republicans and Democrats joined to increase Social Security benefits, im-
prove the operations of Medicare and tighten up on Medicaid, take the able-bodied
off the welfare rolls and put them to work, and to make all the meat purchased in
America safe to eat.
Republicans joined with Democrats in support of the President's basic Vietnam
policy -- halting Communist aggression in Southeast Asia. It is only those in the
President's own party who talk about "cutting and running."
I am not surprised that Mr. Johnson finds fault with the 90th Congress. The
Congress repudiated him and his guns-and-butter policy by insisting on deep spend-
ing cuts in deferrable and controllable areas.
The President is unhappy because Republican strength in the House increased
this year by 47 seats. This is simply proof that the American people rebuffed
President Johnson in 1966 and will repudiate him completely in 1968.
---o000oo--