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Remarks of the President at the GOP Reception, Exhibition Hall, Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge [Ford Speech or Statement]
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7344488
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Remarks of the President at the GOP Reception, Exhibition Hall, Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge [Ford Speech or Statement]
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White House Press Releases (Ford Administration)
Press Releases
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1976-06-11
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1976
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Digitized from Box 27 of the White House Press Releases at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JUNE 11, 1976
OFFICE OF THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY
(Springfield, Missouri)
THE WHITE HOUSE
REMARKS OF THE PRESIDENT
AT THE
GOP RECEPTION
EXHIBITION HALL
HOWARD JOHNSON'S MOTOR LODGE
7:32 P.M. CDT
Thank you very, very much, Governor Bond, Senators
Tower, Baker and Dole, Lieutenant Governor Phelps, Attorney
General Danforth, Lowell McCuskey, Gene McNary, Rog Morton,
delegates and guests:
It is great to be back in Missouri. I love you.
As many of you know, I have been in Missouri a
great many times campaigning for Republican candidates for
all offices. As many of you know, I have been in Missouri
a great many times to help raise money we could have a strong
two-party system in the great State of Missouri.
So it is good to be here and to see 1400 good
delegates who are going to do the right thing for the
Republican Party tomorrow.
I would like to take a very few minutes to talk
positively and affirmatively about the record of the Ford
Administration for the last 22 months. Refresh your memory
just a bit. In August of 1974 this country was in serious
trouble for reasons that we all know. There had been a great
loss of confidence in the White House itself. This country
was facing economic chaos in August of 1974. We were
suffering 12 percent or higher inflation. We were on the
brink of the worst economic recession in 40 years. We were
still in war. Our allies were uncertain and our adversaries
were tempted. In the last 22 months we have turned all three
around.
We have restored confidence and trust in the White
House by the fact that we have had an open, straightforward,
candid Administration. The door is open to individuals, the
door is open to people who will come in and work with us,
bring us their criticism, their complaints and their
recommendations.
MORE
Page 2
The net result is the White House is trusted. The
White House has had a restoration of confidence.
Number two, in the last 12 months we have added
3 million 700 thousand more jobs in America. Last Friday
the Department of Labor announced that 87 million 700 thousand
people had jobs, an all time record in the history of the
United States. We should be proud of it. We have done a
good job.
We have gone from 12 percent inflation in 1974 down
to 3 percent or less for the first five months of 1976. He
have reduced the rate of inflation by 75 percent. That is
a good record.
Let me speak for just a minute on how we have done
it. We have done it because we have held the lid on Federal
spending. Most of you know that in the last 22 months I
vetoed 49 spending bills. A majority of the Congress sent
budget busting deficit increasing spending bills down, and
with the help of people like Bob Dole, John Tower, Howard
Baker, we have been able to sustain 42 of them and save the
taxpayer $13 billion.
MORE
Page 3
And let me add, if this Democratic Congress sends
any more like that, we will veto them again and again and
again and again.
But we have turned the economy around by good
economic policies. Instead of adding people to the Federal
payroll, I recommended a year ago that we have a tax reduction.
We approved a $23 billion tax reduction in 1975 -- 25 percent
went to business, 75 percent went to individual taxpayers --
and, as a result, the economy is moving in the right direction.
But, in order to keep that momentum going, I have
recommended that the Congress approve another $10 billion
tax reduction, beginning July 1, including an increase in
the personal exemption from $750 to $1,000. The taxpayers
deserve it.
But I also recommended -- and this is something
that is very fundamental -- that we increase the estate tax
exemption from $60,000 to $150,000, so that family farms,
so that small businesses could go from one generation to
another without the taxpayer grabbing all of the work and
the love and affection that people have.
I am glad to report to you that Senator Dole said
to me on the way out here that the Senate Committee on Finance
in effect has recommended that that proposal be included
in the tax legislation which will be on the Senate Floor
next week.
One provision which is vitally important under
current law -- when a husband passes property to his wife or
vice versa, there is a Federal estate tax imposed. Under
my proposition, those transfers are nontaxable, as they
should be.
I am pleased to stand here in this great City of
Springfield in the State of Missouri and say to you that
not a single American boy is fighting and dying on foreign
soil. We have peace, we have the military capability to
maintain it, and under the Ford Administration, because we
are strong, we are going to keep it.
I am the first President since Ike ran in 1956 who
could go to the American people and say, "I want your votes.
We have peace. We don't have a war that the United States
is engaged in." That is progress, by any standard.
So, I come to you in Springfield and ask for your
help and assistance. I can be elected. I can help elect
other Republicans from the courthouse to the Congress. That
is the way you build a two-party system in Missouri and the
other 49 States.
MORE
Page 4
Let me conclude with this observation: This country
is on the brink of its third 100th year. In our third century
in America, I think we ought to emphasize the freedom of the
individual. In our first 100 years in America, we developed
a form of Government that protected that precious freedom
which we enjoy. In our second century of America, we
developed the greatest economic industrial machine in the history
of mankind.
But our third century must be the century for the
protection of the individual. We must protect that individual
against mass Government, against mass labor, against mass
business, against mass education. The third century of
this country must be the one where the individual has a new
birth of freedom, and in the first four years under the Ford
Administration I guarantee you we will get a kick-off in
the right direction.
Tomorrow, every one of the 1,400-plus delegates
here has a great responsibility and that responsibility reminds
me of the responsibility that 59 delegates to the
Constitutional Convention in Independence Hall in the City
of Philadelphia, about 200 years ago, had. They had a
responsibility of representing 13 small, struggling colonies,
about 3 million people. They labored from May until September,
and when they concluded that responsibility of drafting the
greatest document in the history of mankind for the governing
of people and a Nation -- after they had all signed, Benjamin
Franklin, one of those delegates, wandered down onto the street
and he was accosted by an old lady and that lady said to
Ben Franklin, "Mr. Franklin, what have you given us, a
monarchy or a republic?" And Ben Franklin said, "We have
given you a republic, if you can keep it."
All of you here in Springfield tomorrow have an
awesome responsibility to a very high degree. You have the
same responsibility, whether you can keep or help to keep the
republic. I have faith and trust in you.
We are going to win in Kansas City and we are going
to win in November.
Thank you very much.
END (AT 7:42 P.M. CDT)