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Remarks of the Vice President at the GOP Reception [Speeches by Others]
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7344592
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Remarks of the Vice President at the GOP Reception [Speeches by Others]
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White House Press Releases (Ford Administration)
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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 18, 1976
Office of the Vice President
(Greensboro, North Carolina)
REMARKS OF THE VICE PRESIDENT
AT THE
GOP RECEPTION
GREENSBORO COLISEUM EXHIBITION HALL
GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA
AT 8:42 P.M. EDT
Thank you very much.
Governor Jim Holshouser, thank you, sir, for your
kind words.
To Bob Shaw, I would like to thank him very much
for his invitation. It has given me a chance to be here
in North Carolina.
I am only sorry Happy isn't here. She has got a
lot of friends here. We both think the world of North
Carolina. The only problem was we had our State Committee
meeting yesterday, and we had a lunch and then a cocktail
party and then 3,000 for dinner. By the time she got
through that, she had had it. But the party did well. So
we are in good shape.
But I am delighted to be here, and I am delighted
to be here with my good friend Jesse Helms, who I see over
there.
I have the honor of presiding over the Senate.
Of course, I wouldn't want any of you to think that is more
than it is, because I am not allowed to speak without
unanimous consent. I can't get his consent, so I never can
speak. But I do get a chance to vote when there is a tie.
They haven't had a tie, so I haven't even voted yet. But it
is a great honor.
I would like to say you have got two wonderful
Congressmen here, Congressman Jim Broyhill and Congressman
Jim Martin. You have got great representation. We have
just got to get more Republicans in the Senate and in the
House. That's what we have all got to do.
I would like to salute all of you fellow Repub-
licans and you discerning Democrats. And I have to say
that because, let's face it, we can't win an election alone.
I want to say hello to Phyllis Schlafly, a great
Republican, who is going to speak to you later.
I would like to say, as I said earlier, there is
a great deal of similarity between our two States, if you
don't mind my making the analogy. Some might object. We
both have States of minority parties -- three to one
registration -- and yet both of us have been able to elect
Republicans. And that means we reach out beyond the
Republican Party to get support.
MORE
Page 2
I think the Republican Party believes that the
best politics is good government. What the people want is
good government, and they get it from Republicans. So you
have elected Republicans statewide, to Congress, local
office, and it is only because of this.
I would like to say also how deeply grateful I am
to everybody in this room, because you are here to support
the Party financially. You can't run an effective political
organization, no matter how brilliant your leaders are --
just like Bob Shaw and all of you who are the county chairmen
and other Party officials -- without financial support. You
can't reach the public without the funds to organize. So I
would just like to express my appreciation, as a Republican,
to all of you for coming here and for contributing to the
Party and making it possible.
Now, I happen to also believe very strongly, as I
know you do, in a two-party system. I think this is the
lifeblood of democracy. I think it is the basis for
preserving our freedom. And we have got to have two strong,
alive parties.
Now, we have got a minority party. We don't want
to be worrying about that, but we want to stay united,
because there are not too many of us. So we can't afford to
get split up, because we haven't got enough to elect state-
wide officials or a national official by ourselves anyhow,
so we might as well stick together.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, let me just talk a
little bit about where we are right now. This is to me one
of the most exciting moments in which to live. I think if
we have the ability, the imagination, the courage, the
vision to grasp the opportunities that lie before us for our
country and the world, that we can go into one of the great-
est, if not the greatest, periods in the history of civili-
zation.
Science and technology, the American enterprise
system, the tremendous drive and initiative and imagination
that exist in this country and in the free world, we have
the opportunities today to grasp those if we stick to the
fundamental believs on which this country was founded.
This is our 200th Anniversary, so it gives us an
opportunity to look back. And the only reason we are here
is because the founding fathers had the wisdom, when they
set up this country, to set it up on the basis of individual
freedom, and not only individual freedom but economic free-
dom. Those were very importantly related in their minds.
We broke away from the mercantile system in England.
Our economy was controlled in North Carolina and New York and
all the colonies by the British in London for their benefit.
So we sought economic freedom along with individual freedom,
and, of course, religious freedom.
Now, a lot of us here are Baptists, and we have
just got to stick together -- not across party lines but
within the party. But those three freedoms are essential.
MORE
Page 3
Now, I have a feeling that in our search for
security we are losing the concept of the economic freedom.
Without economic freedom I don't think you can preserve
individual freedom, and I don't think you can preserve
religious freedom. So this is something we have got to
stick with.
Too many people today, too many young people and
too many older people, don't understand how our system
works and the fact that it is the individuals with imagina-
tion and with creativity and the organizations, whether
corporations or associations, that produce goods and
services to meet demands and in the process employ people
and in the process make profits. And that is the basis
for the revenue of government. Eighty-five percent of
the revenue of government comes from the private enterprise
system, directly or indirectly. Therefore, government can
only be effective in meeting its responsibilities to people
if our system is working.
Two years ago we were at a mighty low period.
We had been through the trauma of Viet Nam. We went through
the trauma of Watergate. People had lost confidence and
respect for the leadership of government, and it was pretty
rough. Then we came into a period of recession and depres-
sion, and at that point we found ourselves with inflation
and unemployment.
Now, let me just say this: That was two years ago
and in that period the Republican Party -- well, for the
last eight, as a matter of fact, but if you take the last
two, because people don't think back that far -- the
Republican Party has led this Nation into a period where
respect for government has been restored. People now
respect and have confidence in government.
This economy which people thought was going to be
in very serious condition, whith the Democrats thought could
only be brought back through tremendous, huge government
expenditures. Increasing the deficit would have fed infla-
tion and not solved the problem for encouraging the enter-
prise system to grow.
The Republican Administration, under our President,
had the courage to veto those expenditures and to encourage
the enterprise system, with the result, ladies and gentlemen,
that in the last year inflation has been cut in half. In the
last year there are 2,600,000 more jobs than there were a
year ago. The growth rate is now at 8.6 percent. And
nobody, not even the wildest optimists could have thought
this could have been achieved during this period.
This is the Republican record, ladies and gentle-
men, and nobody can take it away from us. And I want to
tell you, it is based on a belief in the fundamental beliefs
that made this country what it is today, getting back to
those values and that understanding. And there are some of
us who still believe in the work ethic, that the only way
you get something is to work for it.
Now, the Fabian Socialists in England thought you
had to divide up everything. Well, we all feel very badly
MORE
Page 4
about what is happening in England, but maybe that is a
pretty good example for us, and maybe this is something we
are very fortunate to see happening in order to not have it
happen here, ladies and gentlemen. We have got to believe
in our system and give it a chance to work. And that is
what has happened.
Now, there is a lot more to be done. I happen to
have been in government a long' time. I was the governor
for 15 years of another State. I know the government has
now got 1,007 categorical grant programs. These are special
programs of aid. And in order to get the money you have
got to enrich and improve your program and then you have got
to live by all the laws and all the administrative procedures
that are established by the Congress.
I want to tell you we already were pretty well
enriched and improved in our programs in New York before the
program from the Federal Government came along. By the time
we met their criteria, we just about went bankrupt.
The trouble is, we have got to get back to some
fundamentals, ladies and gentlemen, and there is a lot of
unwinding to do. And these two great Congressmnn of yours
and your Senator have got to do what they are doing, which
is help get us back to the fundamentals. You can't spend
more money than you have or earn, whether you are an
individual or a city or town or village or county or State
or Nation, without going bankrupt at some point.
And the money doesn't grow on trees. You have got
to produce it. And the only way you can produce it is by
working. Now, I think the American people are coming back
to this, and I think it is thanks to Republican administra-
tion.
But there is one more area I think we want to note,
and that is that we are living in a period of peace, ladies
and gentlemen. You have got to think back that we were in a
long period of war until the Republican Administration came
in. Now we have got peace. We have been living through
some very difficult, dangerous times in the Middle East and
other parts of the world, but the President and the
Secretary of State have done a superb job of handling this.
Now they have got this conference coming down in
Puerto Rico where they are meeting together with the other
industrial nations to talk about how do we encourage all
nations to move along these same sound principles on which
this Nation was built so that we can have a return to a
period of growth and that we can cooperate with the
Third World nations and help them to understand that the
only way they are going to be able to do for their people
is produce for themselves. And we can cooperate with them
to the mutual benefit of both. So the leadership in the
United States now in the world is at a high point.
Now, when you take those three areas -- restor-
ation of respect for government, the economy starting to
really pick up and roll and growing at this rate -- it is
even at a rate which we can't keep up; we will get infla-
tion if we do -- and peace in the world, I would like to
ask you, what is the basis of the Democratic attack in order
MORE
Page 5
to run their campaign? What are they going to be able to say
come November that they are going to do that this Republican
Administration hasn't done? I don't think they are going
to find they have got anything.
I was saying this afternoon that I just cut out
the Democratic platform from the paper, and I am going to
read it on the way home tonight. I am sure it is the same
stuff, just rehashed, that they have always had, which is
spend more money, which the taxpayers can't afford to pay.
I don't think they are going to get very far.
My feeling is the voters, ladies and gentlemen, are not
going to want to change either, that they want this
Republican Administration to stay in office, and that
we are going to see the American people, regardless of
their party affiliation, voting Republican in November.
And we are going to have a Republican victory in November,
ladies and gentlemen.
I think they are going to say, "Why change
horses in the middle of the stream when the horse is
doing a good job and things are going well?" And I also
have a feeling, ladies and gentlemen, that maybe the
Republicans at their own convention are going to come to
the same conclusion -- why not stick with what we have got,
which is pretty good leadership in the Republican Party?
Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.
END
AT 9:00 P.M. EDT