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One Week to Go - Remarks of the Vice President at the National Press Club Luncheon [Speeches by Others]
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One Week to Go - Remarks of the Vice President at the National Press Club Luncheon [Speeches by Others]
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Digitized from Box 33 of the White House Press Releases at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
FOR RELEASE UPON DELIVERY
OCTOBER 26, 1976
Office of the Vice President
"ONE WEEK TO GO
REMARKS OF THE VICE PRESIDENT
AT THE
NATIONAL PRESS CLUB LUNCHEON
WASHINGTON, D. C.
October 26, 1976
This is the fifth Presidential campaign in which I
have actively participated. But this is different.
This time I'm not running for anything!
By the way, what ever happened to Bo Callaway?
This has been an unusual experience for me. The
New Times and John Dean have shown no interest in my jokes.
I haven't been asked for an interview by Playboy.
True, I got a brief flurry of press copy when I
gave an uncouth heckler the "hi-ya fella" sign in reverse.
But even the Village Voice has been strangely silent about me
now. And I'm here today at the Press Club only because the
President asked me to substitute for him.
The title of this speech is "One Week to Go".
Our Bicentennial year's presidential contest ends next Tuesday.
The voters on that day make a crucial decision regarding this
nation's leadership and its future.
It is said that large numbers of people are disinterested,
disenchanted or discouraced and will stay home. I deeply hope
this is not SO. The issues in this campaign are real -- are
serious -- and divide the candidates.
It may well be that this has not been the most
scintillating campaign ever. But it is well to remember, even
in these days of television, that a presidential contest was
never intended to be entertainment. The best television political
performers don't necessarily make the ablest political leaders.
Also, I doubt that the four T.V. "debates" (and I put
the word "debates" in quotes) will be packaged by Fred Astaire
and presented in the movies as a third version of "That's
Entertainment. I do none of the candidates an injustice, I am
sure you'll agree, when I say that the historical positions of
Lincoln and Douglas have not been diminished by these recent
exchanges.
The "debates", let's face it, were not debates. They
were interview programs and the answers and the interchanges
were as much the responsibility of the interviewers and the
format as of the candidates being interviewed.
The pity is that we didn't have real debates debates
in depth to get at the underlying assumptions, the beliefs, the
approaches and the solutions to the nation's problems that the
candidates really espouse. Because, friends, the nation does
confront a future wherein the lessons of our yesterdays and the
potentialities of our tomorrows must be weighed and gauged,
reconciled and applied applied with wisdom and courage.
- MORE -
- 2
Because, also, my friends, there seems to be a basic
difference between President Ford and Governor Carter in their
approach to the role of government in our society. President
Ford has shown by his actions that he is for government action
to stimulate the economy and ensure fairness and equity for
individuals but to restrain government interference in the
daily lives of the people. He is working to cut bureaucratic
red tape. Governor Carter on the other hand, espouses more
governmental programs, more governmental regulation and more
governmental restraints.
President Ford has taken courageous steps to control
inflation. His vetoes of Congressional programs that spelled
large government money outlays may not have been helpful to
him politically with certain special interests, but they have
been a factor in the overall policy of his administration that
has brought the inflation rate down from 12.7 percent to 4.4 percent
currently. This is a gigantic achievement and if you don't
think so look at the inflation rate in the rest of the world.
The Democrats' program frankly is cast more in the
government spending mold. Conservative estimates would price
their proposals as adding $50 to $100 billion to the federal budget
with no specifics on how such programs could be financed.
The issue of inflation is a critical one. Democracies
have survived wars, national catastrophe, difficult economic and
social struggles but inflation, out of hand, has been fatal.
Adolf Hitler would never have risen to power if democratic Germany
had not destroyed itself by inflation. Democratic governments
in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru and other countries have been
suspended when they failed to control inflation.
There is no doubt that excessive government deficit
spending is the major factor in high rates of inflation --- and
the Nobel prize just went to a noted American for his work
demonstrating this fundamental truth.
The Congress has become geared to spending. Pushed by
special interests it responds to issues and pressures by the
simplest method spending. It fails to face the more toilsome
and difficult tasks of revision and restructuring of many of our
basic, social and regulatory government programs. Partnership
government by a spending President with a spend-more Congress
is more than a cause for concern: it can be an invitation to
disaster the disaster of uncontrollable inflation.
A second basic issue is the approach of the candidates
to the American enterprise economy and the problem of employment.
President Ford has not only espoused but practiced the view that
the enterprise system can and should be counted on to produce the
bulk of the nation's employment that the role of covernment
is to encourage American enterprise and set a framework of laws
and policies that will give certainty and stimulus to the
enterprise system.
The results of this policy are most impressive. The
total number of gainfully employed in the United States is now
87.8 million! Some 3.7 million new jobs have been generated
since March 1975 the low point of the recession. So there
has been an average increase of some 206,000 jobs monthly since
that date. And this has been achieved while the inflation
rate has been cut from the 12.7 percent in the fourth cuarter
of 1974 to the 4.4 percent of the third quarter of 1976.
Few economists thought employment could be increased and inflation
cut at the same time.
- MORE -
- 3 -
The Democrats -- candidate and Congress alike -- on the
other hand have espoused the Humphrey-Hawkins Bill -- the creation
of public jobs by Federal government spending. The thrust of the
program the Candidate has proposed with over a $10 to $30 billion
estimated price tag means even more and more government employees
resulting in either increased taxes or increased inflation --
and inflation is the most insidious form of hidden tax which hits
worst those who can least afford it.
President Ford's economic policy thrusts are far more
in the direction of government encouraging the individuals, the
voluntary and private enterprises, than Governor Carter's approaches
appear to be.
This takes on greater significance when one looks at
tax philosophies and approaches. Although his views have gvrated
with the audience before whom he has appeared, the consistent
theme of the Democratic candidate appears to be one of heavier
taxation of the middle class and upper income croups and heavier
levies on enterprise for the benefit of what he calls the poor.
Surely all of us and both candidates are concerned over the lot
of the needy in our society. But, surely, there is greater
opportunity for self- development in a free choice economy and
society than in one regimented by governmental bureaucracy.
Put another way, the Ford approach is to encourage the
productivity and job creating force of the enterprise system
to expand industry, expand energy, expand markets and make available
more goods and services to people through "real" jobs in the
enterprise sector. This is the proven American method that has
produced the enormous output of the nation's agriculture industry
and commerce. Governor Carter's orientation appears to be heavier
reliance on spending and regulation by government which would
try to reorganize but apparently not try to reduce.
President Ford is an advocate of growth. He does
not subscribe to the original doctrines of the Club of Rome that
saw growth incompatible with environmental health and world
stability. Governor Carter's views are less clear but seem closer
to the growth approach.
This difference appears most sharply in the respective
views on energy. The President has sent to the Congress legislation
to build new energy facilities and to develop the nation's
energy resources while protecting the environment. This view
is that energy development and environmental achievements are
not only compatible but essential if the interests of people
are to be considered paramount. Governor Carter is much less
forthright on how to get the energy we need and takes refuge
in concerns over such matters as nuclear power and the dangers
of nuclear proliferation (which is no longer controllable by us)
and the problems of strip mining.
The Democratic Congress has stymied the President's
energy program and through its inaction we now import 40% of
our oil from foreign sources overseas compared to 30% at the
time of the Arab embargo. The cost to us in foreign exchange
will be $36 billion this year alone. Just think what this
amount would mean to us spent here in this country in terms of
energy production and jobs for an additional 1,300,000 people.
This brings me to another vital point. The economic
recovery we have experienced has yet to see the kind of spending
for capital goods plants, equipment, transport facilities,
power stations and the like that will be necessary to carry us
forward to fuller productivity and employment.
- MORE -
- 4 -
Governor Carter does not appear to have an adequate
appreciation of the conditions that are likely to stimulate
capital goods spending by American enterprise. This is evident in
his tax approaches, his energy policy approach, and his monetary
approach that would politicize our Federal Reserve Board and make
it a tool of the White House.
President Ford's energy program, his tax approaches and
monetary policy, on the other hand, appear far better calculated
to produce confidence and capital goods spending on the part of
American industry which is necessary to stimulate the economy
and liquidate the recession.
Although the rhetoric of the campaign may not indicate it,
the Ford policy is more likely to generate capital spending, jobs
and increase personal incomes than his opponent's. Some think
we may be in the kind of secular slowdown that Alvin Hansen, the
distinguished economist, considered was plaguing us in the Franklin
Roosevelt years despite all of the New Deal special programs, and
that only the demands of the war really pulled us out of the Great
Depression. We certainly have the capacity to revive the economy
by conscious government action to stimulate enterprise to meet our
national needs. President Ford has recommended to the Congress
a whole series of measures which could accomplish this including:
-- Incentives and sanctions for conservation of energy.
-- Encouragement of production of new domestic sources
of energy.
-- Rehabilitation of our railroad system.
-- Stimulation of research and technological development
for new industries.
-- Encouragement for private capital formation for investment
in new plants and equipment essential for more and
better jobs.
-- Elimination of bureaucratic red tape in government which
shackles individuals and hamstrings the economy.
Unfortunately the Congress has not acted on most of the
President's recommendations which would have accelerated the
economic recovery and the achievement of jobs and opportunities
for all.
Turning to the world scene, George Santayana once said
that: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat
it."
One has an unease about Governor Carter's views of the
international situation. His early talk of withdrawing support
from South Korea brings back the memory of the events that led to
the North Korean invasion that set off the Korean War. His recent
comments on Yugoslavia in the event of possible Russian military
intervention must certainly send shivers up the spines of our
friends and allies. And they can hardly give comfort to Americans
from those nations of Eastern Europe that are under Soviet military
domination.
Similarly Governor Carter has talked about cuts in defense
spending when the growing worldwide offensive milirary capability
of the Soviet Union -- in conventional forces, in its Navy and
Air Force, satellites and communications as well as its missile
capability -- is challenging us as never before.
(MORE)
- 5 **
President Ford has consistently urged the Congress to
improve our research and technological capability and to modernize
our weapons system. He has shown in the Mayaguez incident and
the recent Panmunjom affair the strength and determination
necessary in the international world.
And the initiatives of the Ford Administration in the
Middle East, in South Africa, in the world food problem, in
pushing the revision of the Laws of the Seas stand in sharp
contrast to the opposition's vague generalities.
Governor Carter speaks much about leadership. His
concept appears to be one in which everyone, the Congress and
the President are all going to, as the great evangelist Billy
Sunday said "hit the Trail together." Presumably the motivating
and overriding force of this movement will be undefined "love".
Somehow this would supersede all need for pragmatic solutions
and hard decisions for the real problems that will confront us.
But let's talk about leadership and love. Let's
talk about a man catapulted from a Michigan Congressional district
into the Presidency in the most serious constitutional crisis
this Nation has faced since the Civil War. Let's talk about
President Ford's inheriting the shambled aftermath of Watergate,
about his restoring of confidence and carry on of government.
Let's talk about the Viet Nam debacle and his rebuilding of
confidence in us by our allies and friends -- and the inculcation
of new respect by our competitors and potential adversaries.
Let's talk about double digit inflation coupled with severe
unemployment we faced two years ago and the economic recovery since
that is unmatched in the world today. Compare this Country's
record with the other industrial Nations. If this isn't the
result of leadership, what is it?
And when one speaks of love -- one has to love this
country and love its people to put aside the easy ways -- the
more politically palatable practices -- to make the tough
decisions, including the vetoes, to keep this nation strong
and solvent.
With one week to go, I urge you and all Americans not
to confuse rhetoric with reality.
With next Tuesday's election , we begin the return to
an elected Presidency and the established routines of our
constitutional government. The unprecedented caretaker adminis-
tration -- the transitional government -- will be drawing to
a close. In its two tumultuous years, and with all the disabili-
ties it had to carry, President Ford's administration has brought
the Nation through united and strong.
I urge you and the American people to dispassionately
appraise the performance of these past two years and evaluate
the potential for the future. In so doing let us remember that
insight is far better than hindsight.
The solid foundations President Ford has built despite
the Congress is already paying off. The crisis of confidence,
of inflation and respect of the leaders abroad is now over.
That is the kind of stable; leadership we have in
President Ford -- and what is needed to build the greatness
of America in the future.
* * *