Ask the Scholar

Document scope · 1 page
doc
Scholar
Ask about this object, its catalog metadata, its source description, or the page inventory. For page-specific OCR and visual context, open one of the page chats.

Scholar Source Context

Document identity
localId
4526123
label
Gloucester County Republican Dinner for Representative John E. Hunt, Woodbury, NJ, May 15, 1968
core
doc
dtoType
document
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
4526123
contentType
document
title
Gloucester County Republican Dinner for Representative John E. Hunt, Woodbury, NJ, May 15, 1968
collections
Gerald R. Ford Congressional Papers
Speeches
subjects
Economics
Federal budget
Inflation (Finance)
imageCount
1
hasImages
yes
source
import
hasTranscription
no
Source extras
naId
4526123
coverageEndDate
logicalDate
1968-05-31
month
5
year
1968
coverageStartDate
logicalDate
1968-05-01
month
5
year
1968
levelOfDescription
fileUnit
recordType
description
ocrSource
nara-archive
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
document
mediaId
e25afb27cc596633
ocrText
The original documents are located in Box D24, folder "Gloucester County Republican Dinner for Representative John E. Hunt, Woodbury, NJ, May 15, 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 The Council donated to the United States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections.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. distribution : Full 11:00 a. M. 5/15/68 20 Capies Mr. Ford Office Copy CONGRESSMAN NEWS GERALD R. FORD HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER RELEASE --FOR RELEASE IN THURSDAY AM's-- May 16, 1968 Excerpts from a Speech by House Republican Leader Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich., at a Gloucester County, N.J., Republican Dinner for Rep. John E. Hunt, Wednesday evening, May 15, 1968, at Woodbury, N.J. The Johnson-Humphrey Administration is offering the Congress and the American people two painful choices--an income tax increase along with spending cuts or a recession brought on by the Democratic Party's boom-and-bust spending policies. In the final analysis, the decision really rests with Lyndon Johnson. He must accept the $6 billion spending reduction approved by a House-and-Senate committee as part of a spending cut-tax increase package aimed at slowing down inflation or free-spending Democrats in the House will doom the Nation to economic disaster. Only if the President endorses the $6 billion cut in his spending plans for fiscal 1969 will many of the House Democrats grudgingly join hands with those of us determined to rescue the dollar from the possible disaster precipitated by Democratic fiscal mismanagement. I urge the President to emulate Secretary of the Treasury Henry H. Fowler, who has endorsed the $6 billion cut as part of the dollar rescue package. With the Treasury Secretary's endorsement of the $6 billion cut, it should now be perfectly clear that the President was engaging in nothing but scare tactics when he said a cut of more than $4 billion would cause "chaos" in the federal government. Or does the President think Secretary Fowler is in favor of chaos? I am not surprised that House Democrats are trying to figure out a way to reduce the size of the spending cut while leaving the tax increase untouched. This fits with the established Democratic Party philosophy of "tax and tax, spend and spend." I don't want an income tax increase. No American really wants a tax increase. But I will take the tax increase to get a hold-down in federal spending and to prevent the financial disaster which now threatens this Nation. I think the President ought to accept the $6 billion spending cut for the same reason. If there is financial chaos in this country, it will only be because the Democratic Party refuses to help tidy up the fiscal mess it has created through its unsound and irresponsible policies. You know it, and I know it, and most Americans know it. It is because the Johnson-Humphrey Administration and the Democrats in Congress have been dodging their fiscal duty for two years that prices have been soaring, home mortgage (more) Digitized from Box D24 of The Ford Congressional Papers: Press Secretary and Speech File at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library -2- interest rates have climbed to a 50-year high, taxes are about to go up, and the dollar has sunk so low in the eyes of Europeans that a collapse of world trade threatens US. I assure you a Republican Administration and a Republican Congress would never have permitted runaway inflation in this country. The Democrats have dodged their responsibility for keeping the Nation's fiscal house in order; they cannot dodge the blame for the present high cost of living. The Democratic Party cannot dodge the blame for what inflation has done to the elderly and others on a fixed income. The Democratic Party cannot dodge the blame for the cost-price squeeze which has made American farmers prime victims of inflation, the only group in our society which suffered a pay cut last year. The Democratic Party cannot dodge the blame for putting most Americans on an economic treadmill, wiping out with inflation and taxes all of their nominal pay increases. Progress is a pipedream under the Democrats, conjured up out of slick slogans, bureaucratic buncombe and promissory political notes that are never paid. America is suffering agonies both at home and abroad today. These agonies spring from the policy mistakes and failures of the Democratic Party. Under the Democrats, we are still locked in a no-win war with a Communist nation a fraction our size and no amount of negotiating will win what the Johnson- Humphrey Administration failed to gain on the battlefield due to errors in basic strategy. Under the Democrats, the American people watch in horror as parts of many U.S. cities are burned and looted. I firmly believe the voters will turn to the Republican Party in November. Republicans are offering a program for a New America--a program of genuine progress for all Americans in place of the Democratic program of total federal solutions and bureaucratic bungling. Republicans offer decentralized solutions to America's problems, solutions that will involve all Americans willing to help build a New America, solutions that will work. It will be a program of nationwide on-the-job training to rebuild the people of the central cities, tax-sharing to bring cities and states into the forefront of problem-solving, home ownership for low-income families, price stability so Americans can keep more of what they earn, protection of the law- abiding citizen and not the criminal, and equitable sharing for the farmer and all other Americans in the fruits of our great economy. # # # Office Copy CONGRESSMAN NEWS GERALD R. FORD HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER RELEASE --FOR RELEASE IN THURSDAY AM's-- May 16, 1968 Excerpts from a Speech by House Republican Leader Gerald R. Ford, R-Mich., at a Gloucester County, N.J., Republican Dinner for Rep. John E. Hunt, Wednesday evening, May 15, 1968, at Woodbury, N.J. The Johnson-Humphrey Administration is offering the Congress and the American people two painful choices--an income tax increase along with spending cuts or a recession brought on by the Democratic Party's boom-and-bust spending policies. In the final analysis, the decision really rests with Lyndon Johnson. He must accept the $6 billion spending reduction approved by a House-and-Senate committee as part of a spending cut-tax increase package aimed at slowing down inflation or free-spending Democrats in the House will doom the Nation to economic disaster. Only if the President endorses the $6 billion cut in his spending plans for fiscal 1969 will many of the House Democrats grudgingly join hands with those of us determined to rescue the dollar from the possible disaster precipitated by Democratic fiscal mismanagement. I urge the President to emulate Secretary of the Treasury Henry H. Fowler, who has endorsed the $6 billion cut as part of the dollar rescue package. With the Treasury Secretary's endorsement of the $6 billion cut, it should now be perfectly clear that the President was engaging in nothing but scare tactics when he said a cut of more than $4 billion would cause "chaos" in the federal government. Or does the President think Secretary Fowler is in favor of chaos? I am not surprised that House Democrats are trying to figure out a way to reduce the size of the spending cut while leaving the tax increase untouched. This fits with the established Democratic Party philosophy of "tax and tax, spend and spend." I don't want an income tax increase. No American really wants a tax increase. But I will take the tax increase to get a hold-down in federal spending and to prevent the financial disaster which now threatens this Nation. I think the President ought to accept the $6 billion spending cut for the same reason. If there is financial chaos in this country, it will only be because the Democratic Party refuses to help tidy up the fiscal mess it has created through its unsound and irresponsible policies. You know it, and I know it, and most Americans know it. It is because the Johnson-Humphrey Administration and the Democrats in Congress have been dodging their fiscal duty for two years that prices have been soaring, home mortgage (more) -2- interest rates have climbed to a 50-year high, taxes are about to go up, and the dollar has sunk so low in the eyes of Europeans that a collapse of world trade threatens US. I assure you a Republican Administration and a Republican Congress would never have permitted runaway inflation in this country. The Democrats have dodged their responsibility for keeping the Nation's fiscal house in order; they cannot dodge the blame for the present high cost of living. The Democratic Party cannot dodge the blame for what inflation has done to the elderly and others on a fixed income. The Democratic Party cannot dodge the blame for the cost-price squeeze which has made American farmers prime victims of inflation, the only group in our society which suffered a pay cut last year. The Democratic Party cannot dodge the blame for putting most Americans on an economic treadmill, wiping out with inflation and taxes all of their nominal pay increases. Progress is a pipedream under the Democrats, conjured up out of slick slogans, bureaucratic buncombe and promissory political notes that are never paid. America is suffering agonies both at home and abroad today. These agonies spring from the policy mistakes and failures of the Democratic Party. Under the Democrats, we are still locked in a no-win war with a Communist nation a fraction our size and no amount of negotiating will win what the Johnson- Humphrey Administration failed to gain on the battlefield due to errors in basic strategy. Under the Democrats, the American people watch in horror as parts of many U.S. cities are burned and looted. I firmly believe the voters will turn to the Republican Party in November. Republicans are offering a program for a New America--a program of genuine progress for all Americans in place of the Democratic program of total federal solutions and bureaucratic bungling. Republicans offer decentralized solutions to America's problems, solutions that will involve all Americans willing to help build a New America, solutions that will work. It will be a program of nationwide on-the-job training to rebuild the people of the central cities, tax-sharing to bring cities and states into the forefront of problem-solving, home ownership for low-income families, price stability so Americans can keep more of what they earn, protection of the law- abiding citizen and not the criminal, and equitable sharing for the farmer and all other Americans in the fruits of our great economy. ###