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Republican Dinner, Corpus Christi, TX, May 25, 1968
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Republican Dinner, Corpus Christi, TX, May 25, 1968
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The original documents are located in Box D24, folder "Republican Dinner, Corpus
Christi, TX, May 25, 1968" 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States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections.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 D24 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 AT 6:30 P.M. SATURDAY--
May 25, 1968
Excerpts from a Speech by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich., House Minority Leader, at a
Republican Dinner Saturday evening, May 25, 1968, at Corpus Christi, Texas.
Let's get the facts out in the open. Let's let the truth shine through.
President Johnson and the Democratic majority in Congress have spent this
country into a corner where financial disaster threatens.
The President says the only way to get out of that corner is to raise every-
body's tax bill by 10 per cent.
Republicans in Congress want to cut the President's fiscal 1969 spending
plans by $6 billion and wipe out some future spending authority to slow down the
federal spending spiral and the steady rise in the cost of living.
The President and the Congress have before them a plan to do both, but it's
going nowhere.
Why is the anti-inflation package stalled? Because the President doesn't
want to hold down spending. He just wants to raise taxes.
Meantime the Secretary of Health Education and Welfare, Wilbur J. Cohen, has
launched a scare campaign against the $6 billion cut in the President's fiscal 1969
spending plans. He and others in HEW have been telling members of Congress, state
and local officials, schoolmen, and hospital and nursing home managers that federal
aid for local projects in which they are directly interested will be reduced if the
$6 billion spending hold-down goes into effect.
The White House has denied any coercion and so has Cohen. But Sen. John. J.
Williams of Delaware has proof of the scare campaign, and I personally know that
Cohen has employed it directly on Michigan state officials.
There is no question in my mind that the Johnson-Humphrey Administration is
sparing no effort to get the $6 billion reduction knocked down to the $4 billion
cut the President said he would "reluctantly" accept. Well, the $4 billion cut isn't
good enough for me. I'm determined that the Johnson-Humphrey Administration and the
Democratic majority in Congress take a major hand in cleaning up the fiscal mess
they themselves have created.
I call upon the President to meet with congressional leaders of both parties
to discuss possible cuts in his $186 billion budget. And if he will only figure
on perhaps a $2 billion cut in foreign aid he surely won't have trouble adding
(more)
-2-
up to $6 billion without slicing essential human need programs.
The President and Democrats in Congress must support efforts to solve the
fiscal crisis that hangs over us if inflation is even to be slowed down. We will
wind up this fiscal year June 30 with a deficit of more than $20 billion, and the
outlook for fiscal 1969 is a deficit of $25 to $30 billion without a tax increase
or spending cuts.
The President's argument that the $6 billion cut would create chaos in
government is nonsense. Even with that cut, federal spending for domestic purposes
would run $3.2 billion higher than in the present fiscal year. So when the big
spenders say a $6 billion cut would wreck essential federal programs, they are lying
in their teeth. That's a scare tactic and nothing else.
The truth is that the $6 billion cut would interfere with the Democrats' plan
to follow the old New Deal formula of tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect.
That's why the Democratic majority refuses to go along with the $6 billion reduction.
Are we in financial trouble as a Nation? We've got trotting inflation now--
at the rate of 4 to 5 per cent a year. We'll have galloping inflation if Washington
doesn't act. We've got interest rates of 7 to 8 per cent now on home mortgage
money. We'll have rates of 10 per cent if Washington doesn't act.
Yet a Johnson-Humphrey Administration cabinet official keeps saying our
country is "not in deep trouble." Then he must think it's shallow--and that's just
about the best way to describe the present Administration.
This Administration has been shallow, for instance, in its approach to the
crisis of violence which has this country in the grip of fear.
There is and has been an atmosphere of permissiveness in this country, a
mistaking of license for liberty and an over-concern for the rights of the accused
at the expense of the injured. This imbalance must be corrected. It won't be
corrected by the Johnson-Humphrey Administration or by soft-headed liberals in
Congress--but only by Republicans and others who recognize that law and order, with
justice, must prevail in America.
Republicans have been in the forefront of the war against crime, both in the
House and the Senate. They have been in the vanguard in the House--shaping the
National Law Enforcement Assistance Act to channel anti-crime funds to the states,
insisting on an Anti-Riot Act, urging that wire-tapping be permitted under court
order in the fight against major crime, initiating a law to attack loan sharks
with crime syndicate stripes. Criminals must be brought to justice. We must put
an end to the crime wave that is engulfing the country.
# # #
M Office Copy
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
--FOR RELEASE AT 6:30 P.M. SATURDAY--
May 25, 1968
Excerpts from a Speech by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich., House Minority Leader, at a
Republican Dinner Saturday evening, May 25, 1968, at Corpus Christi, Texas.
Let's get the facts out in the open. Let's let the truth shine through.
President Johnson and the Democratic majority in Congress have spent this
country into a corner where financial disaster threatens.
The President says the only way to get out of that corner is to raise every-
body's tax bill by 10 per cent.
Republicans in Congress want to cut the President's fiscal 1969 spending
plans by $6 billion and wipe out some future spending authority to slow down the
federal spending spiral and the steady rise in the cost of living.
The President and the Congress have before them a plan to do both, but it's
going nowhere.
Why is the anti-inflation package stalled? Because the President doesn't
want to hold down spending. He just wants to raise taxes.
Meantime the Secretary of Health Education and Welfare, Wilbur J. Cohen, has
launched a scare campaign against the $6 billion cut in the President's fiscal 1969
spending plans. He and others in HEW have been telling members of Congress, state
and local officials, schoolmen, and hospital and nursing home managers that federal
aid for local projects in which they are directly interested will be reduced if the
$6 billion spending hold-down goes into effect.
The White House has denied any coercion and so has Cohen. But Sen. John. J.
Williams of Delaware has proof of the scare campaign, and I personally know that
Cohen has employed it directly on Michigan state officials.
There is no question in my mind that the Johnson-Humphrey Administration is
sparing no effort to get the $6 billion reduction knocked down to the $4 billion
cut the President said he would "reluctantly" accept. Well, the $4 billion cut isn't
good enough for me. I'm determined that the Johnson-Humphrey Administration and the
Democratic majority in Congress take a major hand in cleaning up the fiscal mess
they themselves have created.
I call upon the President to meet with congressional leaders of both parties
to discuss possible cuts in his $186 billion budget. And if he will only figure
on perhaps a $2 billion cut in foreign aid he surely won't have trouble adding
(more)
-2-
up to $6 billion without slicing essential human need programs.
The President and Democrats in Congress must support efforts to solve the
fiscal crisis that hangs over us if inflation is even to be slowed down. We will
wind up this fiscal year June 30 with a deficit of more than $20 billion, and the
outlook for fiscal 1969 is a deficit of $25 to $30 billion without a tax increase
or spending cuts.
The President's argument that the $6 billion cut would create chaos in
government is nonsense. Even with that cut, federal spending for domestic purposes
would run $3.2 billion higher than in the present fiscal year. So when the big
spenders say a $6 billion cut would wreck essential federal programs, they are lying
in their teeth. That's a scare tactic and nothing else.
The truth is that the $6 billion cut would interfere with the Democrats' plan
to follow the old New Deal formula of tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect.
That's why the Democratic majority refuses to go along with the $6 billion reduction.
Are we in financial trouble as a Nation? We've got trotting inflation now--
at the rate of 4 to 5 per cent a year. We'll have galloping inflation if Washington
doesn't act. We've got interest rates of 7 to 8 per cent now on home mortgage
money. We'll have rates of 10 per cent if Washington doesn't act.
Yet a Johnson-Humphrey Administration cabinet official keeps saying our
country is "not in deep trouble." Then he must think it's shallow--and that's just
about the best way to describe the present Administration.
This Administration has been shallow, for instance, in its approach to the
crisis of violence which has this country in the grip of fear.
There is and has been an atmosphere of permissiveness in this country, a
mistaking of license for liberty and an over-concern for the rights of the accused
at the expense of the injured. This imbalance must be corrected. It won't be
corrected by the Johnson-Humphrey Administration or by soft-headed liberals in
Congress--but only by Republicans and others who recognize that law and order, with
justice, must prevail in America.
Republicans have been in the forefront of the war against crime, both in the
House and the Senate. They have been in the vanguard in the House--shaping the
National Law Enforcement Assistance Act to channel anti-crime funds to the states,
insisting on an Anti-Riot Act, urging that wire-tapping be permitted under court
order in the fight against major crime, initiating a law to attack loan sharks
with crime syndicate stripes. Criminals must be brought to justice. We must put
an end to the crime wave that is engulfing the country.
# # #