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Ohio Association of Insurance Agents, Cleveland, OH, October 30, 1967
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The original documents are located in Box D22, folder "Ohio Association of Insurance
Agents, Cleveland, OH, October 30, 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States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections.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.
Distribution House 10/27/67
Mailing 10/30/67
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
--FOR RELEASE IN MONDAY PMs--
Excerpts from an Address by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, House Republican Leader,
at the 70th annual convention of the Ohio Association of Insurance
Agents, to be delivered at 11 a.m. Monday, October 30, 1967, at
the Statler-Hilton Hotel, Cleveland, Ohio.
Last January in an appearance before nationwide television, Senate Re-
publican Leader Everett M. Dirksen and I took a look at the State of the Union
as it then appeared. It is time, I believe, for a fresh appraisal of the
problems that confront our Nation.
Such an appraisal could appropriately be titled: "The Great Society --
Where are we and where are we tending?" I believe the answers, based on un-
assailable facts, are startling if not downright shocking.
Administration leaders no longer talk about "the Great Society." Per-
haps this is because our society is more and more that of a Nation in agony.
The American people established the United States Constitution to "in-
sure domestic tranquillity," among other reasons. Today we find this country
torn apart,a Nation in constant turmoil.
The decade of the Sixties, which dawned with such promise, has turned
sour. In place of individual and national progress we find ourselves living
in an age of protest--not merely rebellion for a cause but rebellion for the
sake of rebellion, protest for publicity's sake, and a mass flight from reason,
reality, responsibility and human decency. There has to be a reason.
I believe America is erupting for lack of strong leadership, moral leader-
ship, the kind of leadership that creates confidence and makes the people of
a Nation believe in a cause, the kind of leadership that produces progress for
the deprived without hurting others, decisive, impartial leadership that
brings peace, genuine prosperity and domestic tranquillity.
Look about you and what do you see?
In Vietnam we are fighting a ground war to which 525,000 American mili-
tary personnel and billions upon billions of dollars have been committed--
an Asian land war of the kind the late Gen. Douglas MacArthur and other U.S.
military experts constantly warned against.
At home we continue to be plagued by an assortment of ills--grinding
poverty, recurring crises in race relations, riots, a steadily mounting
crime rate, higher living costs, higher taxes, runaway federal spending.
FORD & LIBRARY
-2-
I will not discuss the Vietnam War at this time except to point out
that in December, 1965, the Republican National Coordinating Committee urged
full use of our conventional air and sea power in the Vietnam struggle and
warned against embroiling this Nation in a huge land war in Southeast Asia.
I would add that our pilots only now are permitted to hit significant
military targets in North Vietnam--targets we should have struck two years
ago--and we still have not shut off the flow of war supplies through the
port of Haiphong.
On the domestic scene, the Federal Government has poured out billions
in an assault on our urban problems. Yet, as in Vietnam, we see little
perceptible progress.
Prominent Democrats as well as Republicans are saying that the Administra-
tion's Great Society programs have not worked. They now are urging the Re-
publican approach of individual incentive and private enterprise know-how.
Republicans for years have urged tax credits for employers willing to
give on-the-job training to the hard-core unemployed. Reluctant to admit
failure, the Administration is scraping together its present programs and
spending $40 million on what it calls a pilot test. In other words, the
Administration simply is unwilling to let the private sector grab the ball
and run with it. And that is the underlying reason for its failures.
For contrast, look at Detroit where business and community leaders
on the New Detroit Committee have launched a major effort to cut unemployment
in the Negro ghetto and to improve the ability of Negroes to fill jobs.
One of the Big Three auto manufacturers says it has 6,500 job openings in
the Detroit area and has sent recruiters into the ghetto to hire the hard-
core unemployed. Michigan Bell Telephone Co. will give orientation and job
training at a high school near the scene of last July's riot. The Detroit
Chamber of Commerce plans to open half a dozen employment offices in the ghetta
That's the approach that promises truly effective results--a people-
oriented program for progress, with full involvement of the private sector.
Government's role should be simply to provide incentive and encouragement,
not to run the show. This is why I believe the GOP proposal of tax credits
for on-the-job training could trigger a nationwide effort patterned after
Detroit's. I submit that the Detroit experiment has a far greater potential
for success than the Administration's pilot test.
The $40 million tagged for that pilot test is typical. It ties in
with the frightening wave of federal spending now sweeping us along
spending generated by the theory that only the federal government can
-3-
solve our problems. This upsurge of federal spending has resulted in eight
consecutive annual deficits, beginning in 1960. But the problems remain.
Where do we go from here? Do we continue our headlong plunge down
the road of massive federal spending on social welfare programs or do we
seek better and less costly solutions to our domestic problems?
Let's look at where we've been and where we're headed. During the
nearly eight years that have elapsed in this decade, our population has
grown by 10 per cent--but the civilian bureaucracy has grown by 25 per cent,
federal payroll costs have climbed by 75 per cent, and total federal spend-
ing has jumped 80 per cent.
Is this spending surge due solely to the Vietnam War? While defense
spending rose by 68 per cent in the Sixties, nondefense spending went up
97 per cent, and welfare and health spending went up 210 per cent.
We can expect that by the time this decade ends the federal budget
will have doubled to $160 billion from its 1960 level, and the deficits
total for the Soaring Sixties will have climbed to nearly $100 billion. The
National Debt---on which we now must pay annual interest charges of $14.2
billion--will have reached about $400 billion.
I hope these projections on federal spending and deficits are cockeyed.
And they may be if what I see happening in this country continues. Right
now the taxpayers are rebelling against excessive federal spending--and
that's what we need to bring federal expenditures back to the level of sanity.
That's the meaning of the current economy drive in the House of Re-
presentatives. We are trying to bring federal spending under control--not
just for this fiscal year but for years to come. Otherwise you will see
income taxes go up not only in 1968 but in future years.
#####
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
--FOR RELEASE IN MONDAY PMs--
Excerpts from an Address by Rep. Gerald R. Ford, House Republican Leader,
at the 70th annual convention of the Ohio Association of Insurance
Agents, to be delivered at 11 a.m. Monday, October 30, 1967, at
the Statler-Hilton Hotel, Cleveland, Ohio.
Last January in an appearance before nationwide television, Senate Re-
publican Leader Everett M. Dirksen and I took a look at the State of the Union
as it then appeared. It is time, I believe, for a fresh appraisal of the
problems that confront our Nation.
Such an appraisal could appropriately be titled: The Great Society --
Where are we and where are we tending? I believe the answers, based on un-
assailable facts, are startling if not downright shocking.
Administration leaders no longer talk about "the Great Society." Per-
haps this is because our society is more and more that of a Nation in agony.
The American people established the United States Constitution to "in-
sure domestic tranquillity," among other reasons. Today we find this country
torn apart,a Nation in constant turmoil.
The decade of the Sixties, which dawned with such promise, has turned
sour. In place of individual and national progress we find ourselves living
in an age of protest--not merely rebellion for a cause but rebellion for the
sake of rebellion, protest for publicity's sake, and a mass flight from reason,
reality, responsibility and human decency. There has to be a reason.
I believe America is erupting for lack of strong leadership, moral leader-
ship, the kind of leadership that creates confidence and makes the people of
a Nation believe in a cause, the kind of leadership that produces progress for
the deprived without hurting others, decisive, impartial leadership that
brings peace genuine prosperity.. and domestic tranquillity.
Look about you and what do you see?
In Vietnam we are fighting a ground war to which 525,000 American mili-
tary personnel and billions upon billions of dollars have been committed--
an Asian land war of the kind the late Gen. Douglas MacArthur and other U.S.
military experts constantly warned against.
At home we continue to be plagued by an assortment of ills--grinding
poverty, recurring crises in race relations, riots, a steadily mounting
GERALD FORD LIBRARY
crime rate, higher living costs, higher taxes, runaway federal spending.
-2-
I will not discuss the Vietnam War at this time except to point out
that in December, 1965, the Republican National Coordinating Committee urged
full use of our conventional air and sea power in the Vietnam struggle and
warned against embroiling this Nation in a huge land war in Southeast Asia.
I would add that our pilots only now are permitted to hit significant
military targets in North Vietnam--targets we should have struck two years
ago--and we still have not shut off the flow of war supplies through the
port of Haiphong.
On the domestic scene, the Federal Government has poured out billions
in an assault on our urban problems. Yet, as in Vietnam, we see little
perceptible progress.
Prominent Democrats as well as Republicans are saying that the Administra-
tion's Great Society programs have not worked. They now are urging the Re-
publican approach of individual incentive and private enterprise know-how.
Republicans for years have urged tax credits for employers willing to
give on-the-job training to the hard-core unemployed. Reluctant to admit
failure, the Administration is scraping together its present programs and
spending $40 million on what it calls a pilot test. In other words, the
Administration simply is unwilling to let the private sector grab the ball
and run with it. And that is the underlying reason for its failures.
For contrast, look at Detroit where business and community leaders
on the New Detroit Committee have launched a major effort to cut unemployment
in the Negro ghetto and to improve the ability of Negroes to fill jobs.
One of the Big Three auto manufacturers says it has 6,500 job openings in
the Detroit area and has sent recruiters into the ghetto to hire the hard-
core unemployed. Michigan Bell Telephone Co. will give orientation and job
training at a high school near the scene of last July's riot. The Detroit
Chamber of Commerce plans to open half a dozen employment offices in the ghetta
That's the approach that promises truly effective results--a people-
oriented program for progress, with full involvement of the private sector.
Government's role should be simply to provide incentive and encouragement,
not to run the show. This is why I believe the GOP proposal of tax credits
for on-the-job training could trigger a nationwide effort patterned after
Detroit's. I submit that the Detroit experiment has a far greater potential
for success than the Administration's pilot test.
The $40 million tagged for that pilot test is typical. It ties in
with the frightening wave of federal spending now sweeping us along.
spending generated by the theory that only the federal government can
-3-
solve our problems. This upsurge of federal spending has resulted in eight
consecutive annual deficits, beginning in 1960. But the problems remain.
Where do we go from here? Do we continue our headlong plunge down
the road of massive federal spending on social welfare programs or do we
seek better and less costly solutions to our domestic problems?
Let's look at where we've been and where we're headed. During the
nearly eight years that have elapsed in this decade, our population has
grown by 10 per cent--but the civilian bureaucracy has grown by 25 per cent,
federal payroll costs have climbed by 75 per cent, and total federal spend-
ing has jumped 80 per cent.
Is this spending surge due solely to the Vietnam War? While defense
spending rose by 68 per cent in the Sixties, nondefense spending went up
97 per cent, and welfare and health spending went up 210 per cent.
We can expect that by the time this decade ends the federal budget
will have doubled to $160 billion from its 1960 level, and the deficits
total for the Soaring Sixties will have climbed to nearly $100 billion. The
National Debt---on which we now must pay annual interest charges of $14.2
billion--will have reached about $400 billion.
I hope these projections on federal spending and deficits are cockeyed.
And they may be if what I see happening in this country continues. Right
now the taxpayers are rebelling against excessive federal spending--and
that's what we need to bring federal expenditures back to the level of sanity.
That's the meaning of the current economy drive in the House of Re-
presentatives. We are trying to bring federal spending under control--not
just for this fiscal year but for years to come. Otherwise you will see
income taxes go up not only in 1968 but in future years.
#####