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Robert A. Taft Government Seminar Banquet, University of Jacksonville, Jacksonville, FL, December 16, 1971
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Robert A. Taft Government Seminar Banquet, University of Jacksonville, Jacksonville, FL, December 16, 1971
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Gerald R. Ford Congressional Papers
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The original documents are located in Box D32, folder "Robert A. Taft Government
Seminar Banquet, University of Jacksonville, Jacksonville, FL, December 16, 1971" 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States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections.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 20 capies u/ Mr. Ford only
Maffice Copy
ADDRESS BY REP. GERALD R. FORD, R-MICH
REPUBLICAN LEADER, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
AT THE ROBERT A. TAFT GOVERNMENT SEMINAR BANQUET
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF JACKSONVILLE
JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA
7 P.M., DECEMBER 16, 1971
FOR RELEASE ON DELIVERY
It is a pleasure to be here tonight. In this rarefied atmosphere of
academia, I feel like a statesman and not a politician.
But actually a man must be a good politician if he is going to be a
statesman, and that is the basic thrust of what I am going to talk about tonight.
Our subject, yours and mine, is "Challenges Facing the Political Parties
and the Nation in the 1970's and that subject is well chosen. The challenges
that face the nation are indeed the challenges facing the political parties. The
political party that is most successful during the Seventies will be the party that
best meets the challenges of our times and sells the American people on its
stewardship.
In a political sense, there is one problem that currently underlies all of
the others. That problem is making Government sufficiently responsive to the
people. If we don't make government responsive to the people, we don't make it
believable. And we must make government believable if we are to have a functioning
democracy.
We have all seen many Americans become increasingly skeptical of our
political system-and I speak now not only of the young but of countless older
Americans. They question whether it matters if they do not go to the polls. And
this kind of questioning threatens our democratic system.
There is an answer to this questioning--and that answer is to make government
work in a way that poeple can see and feel.
The other party may come forward with its own ideas but I personally feel
the best cures for popular lethargy and voter apathy lie in returning power to the
people and restructuring the Federal Government.
I am talking specifically about no-strings sharing of Federal revenue with
state and local governments and about an overhaul of Federal cabinet departments.
(more)
Digitized from Box D32 of The Ford Congressional Papers: Press Secretary and Speech File at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
-2-
This is not very sexy stuff, but it's what is needed to close the gap
between promise and performance in the relationship between government and the
people.
Federal revenue sharing is a continuing financial transfusion that can save
our federal system and bring new strength to government at the grassroots level.
Money is power, and the idea is to put more of the money where more of the power
ought to be--at the local level. The idea is to put the money where the problems
are, and in that way to solve them.
If we can solve problems instead of just talking about them, people will
believe in government. Right now we have a credibility gap to end all credibility
gaps--and the only way to lick it is to lick our problems.
This is why we need a reorganization of the very framework of the Federal
Government to make it better able to deal with the problems of our people. Under
the plan I have in mind, six of the present 11 cabinet departments would be
consolidated into four new departments: Human Resources, Community Development,
Natural Resources, and Economic Affairs. Hearings have been conducted in the
Congress, and it is safe to predict that at least the new Community Development
Department will see the light of day next year.
I said earlier that the only way to make the American people believers in
their government is to lick our problems. Surely one of the biggest problems of
all is the present welfare system, which is like pouring money through a sieve.
We must reform our antiquated and demeaning welfare system. The present
system is a scandal. It just isn't working. Nobody is for a system that makes it
more attractive to be on welfare than to work.
The answer, I think, is the Administration's new Family Assistance Plan--a
plan tied to the work ethic, a plan that encourages families to stay together, a
plan that would put a floor under the income of every family in America. It is
the key to taking people off welfare rolls and putting them on payrolls. It is the
means to a life of dignity for low-income Americans.
When we talk about moving people from welfare rolls to payrolls, it is only
natural we should speak also of what I call "the new prosperity' prosperity in
peacetime.
Seldom in the history of the United States have we had peace and prosperity
at the same time. Prosperity has usually come with a wartime economy, a booming
defense industry. We are now trying to achieve prosperity at the same time that we
(more)
-3--
end our involvement in a costly and tragic war.
What are we dealing with? We are seeking to bring under control an inflation
that roared ahead almost unchecked between 1965 and 1969. We are seeking to
stimulate an economy that has been throttled back as we have fought inflation, have
partially shut down our defense industries and have cut our fighting forces by a
million men.
The challenge that faces the two major political parties in the Seventies is
whether we make inflation-fighting work while at the same time stimulating the
economy to bring about peacetime prosperity.
We are making progress toward price stability and economic prosperity despite
political in-fighting and the natural reluctance of some Americans to see a
President of the opposite political persuasion succeed in meeting one of the biggest
challenges of our times.
I think Phase 2 of our inflation fight is working. It has a lot going for
it, despite obstructionism on the part of organized labor. At the same time, we
soon will have the stimulus of the tax cuts requested by President Nixon and
enacted by the Congress. This should ultimately mean the creation of thousands of
new jobs.
I might mention the tax dollar campaign checkoff scheme at this point, since
it is part of the new tax bill.
As you know, this would allow a taxpayer to earmark $1 of his Federal income
tax payment for campaign spending by the party of his choice, with checkoffs not
ticketed for either party to go into a general campaign fund. To share in the
kitty, a political party need only get a minimum of 5 per cent of the total
Presidential vote.
I am opposed to the expenditure of tax dollars for political campaigning in
principle. I am just as much opposed to the campaign checkoff provision now as I
was when it was timed to the 1972 campaign.
The argument is made that the campaign checkoff provision takes the
Presidential election out of the hands of the big private donors. But this ignores
what happens when there is a fight over a party's nomination. When that happens
private money flows profusely into certain primary campaigns, and the person winning
the nomination has been helped to the nomination by his assorted financial backers.
Under the campaign checkoff provision, the successful nominee then would go on to
try to win the Presidency with a tax-financed campaign--and still would be obligated,
(more)
-4-
if you will, to those who made it possible for him to win the nomination.
I am also opposed to the campaign checkoff scheme because the millions in
tax funds that would be poured into Presidential campaigning could be put to
better use--could be spent on projects directly benefiting the taxpayer. Viewed
another way, it is unfair to those taxpayers who are opposed to having tax funds
used for political campaigning.
As I mentioned earlier, a political party would need to get only 5 per cent
of the total Presidential vote in order to qualify for campaign tax dollars. This,
it seems to me, would lead to a proliferation of political parties in this country
and might eventually kill the two-party system. Our two-party system has served us
well. In those countries having a multiplicity of political parties, the situation
often borders on chaos.
Rather than seek to use tax funds for campaigning, both major political
parties should concentrate on the concerns of the voters and aim at dispelling
voter apathy by coming up with solutions to the nation's key problems.
Certainly one of those key problems--and one of the challenges for both
political parties--is the restoration of our environment. We have already taken
giant steps toward cleaner air through passage of the Clean Air Amendments of 1970.
Now we must focus on the need to clean up the nation's waterways. We must take
every feasible action necessary to make our lakes and streams clean again. In sum,
we must enter upon a new "get tough" era in the effort to restore clean air, clean
water and open spaces--so that these elements will, as the President puts it, "once
again be the birthright of every American."
There are, of course, many other urban ills--crime, poverty, unemployment,
inadequate housing and transportation. These must be attacked on a regional basis,
rather than in piecemeal fragmented fashion.
Local governments can work together as one in attacking crime, improving
transportation and housing, finding jobs for the unemployed through metropolitan
area job centers.
New attitudes are also necessary at other levels of government.
State and federal officials must come to realize that the problems of the
city go far beyond specific slum areas and social ills. City metropolitan area
governments must be given the resources--money and authority--to solve the larger
problems of the whole community.
(more)
-5-
Federal revenue sharing is the key to such local problem-solving. And there
must be a cutting of controls from Washington and State capitols if local
governments are to have the flexibility to get the job done.
There is still another key problem where initiative must be taken at the
Federal level. That is the problem of health care. Progress is being made. With
bipartisan support, the Congress this year enacted the most comprehensive health
manpower legislation in the nation's history. This new health manpower program is
designed to wipe out the estimated shortage of 50,000 doctors by 1978 and to increase
the number of nurses by 400,000 by 1980.
But the health manpower shortage is only part of the challenge that faces
us. The facts are that our entire health delivery system needs improving.
One of the major parties would meet the challenge by putting the Federal
Government in charge of the entire health delivery system and underwriting all
health care through the Federal Treasury. My party would expand the government
role of financing care for the helpless and needy while improving basic health
insurance coverage for all others. Employers would pay the bulk of the health
insurance premiums for the working population. Catastrophic illnesses would be
covered up to $50,000 for each family member. The plan also would stress
preventive medicine--keeping people healthy instead of sending them into hospitals
with minor ailments and thus escalating the nation's health care bill.
My party believes the health care problem can best be met by improving the
present system, not by scrapping it and erecting a Federal bureaucratic structure
in its place.
We have been talking solely about challenges on the domestic scene. Let us
turn now to the foreign arena.
The challenge in foreign affairs is to build a foundation for future peace
while repelling efforts both on the Right and on the Left to shunt America off into
a new posture of isolationism. We must maintain our position of leadership in the
world if the world is to have any chance to live in peace.
A new quality of realism now dominates American foreign policy. We have
agreed to accept Mainland China as a sovereign nation, adjusting our policies in
Asia to meet changed economic and political conditions there. Following our
military withdrawal from Vietnam, we will continue to provide support under the
Nixon Doctrine for our non-Communist friends in Asia.
(more)
-6-
In our relations with the Soviet Union, new realism on both sides has
recognized a mutual interest in reducing the risk of nuclear war. There are signs
that an agreement on the deployment of nuclear missiles will result from the
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. Should these talks indeed prove successful, they
will show that with hard bargaining and diligent negotiation we can avoid a new
upward spiral of the nuclear arms race. This will free our energies for more useful
tention to the hot spots of the world, such as the Middle East and Pakistan.
The foreign relations of the United States have changed drastically in the
past three months, with President Nixon's announced visit to China and his planned
trip to the Soviet Union in late May of next year. The President also is
consulting with our Free World partners in advance of his trips to the summit in
Peking and Moscow.
In announcing his visit to Moscow, the President referred to "recent advances
in bilateral and multilateral negotiations involving the two countries." It is
safe to assume this included the SALT Talks.
Sources close to the Talks, which resumed in Vienna on Nov. 15, indicate a
good prospect for limiting anti-ballistic missile systems on both sides and a fair
prospect for a limit on offensive missiles.
I am convinced the bargaining from strength carried on by the Administration
at SALT has earned the respect of the Russians. The prospects for agreement today
are related, in my view, to our own decision to proceed with strategic weapons
development--including the ABM system--during these Talks.
We are turning from an era of confrontation to an era of negotiation. But
there is no question in my mind that negotiation will prove fruitful only if we
negotiate from a position of strength. This is the lesson which is lost on the
neo-isolationists.
We are achieving success in foreign affairs because we are continuing to show
the world that we are determined to discharge America's responsibilities.
We did not withdraw troops from Europe in the absence of an agreement for
mutual troop withdrawal.
We stood up to Russia in the Syria-Jordan crisis in October of 1970.
We reinforced the Sixth Fleet to compensate for Russian moves.
We are not going to let Russian expansionism in the Indian Ocean go unanswered.
What we are telling the Soviet Union and the world is that we will not allow
(more)
-7-
the other super-power to gain any advantages and we will continue to lead the
world toward peace.
This is the challenge that faces us in foreign affairs--that we continue to
assert world leadership in the face of neo-isolationism, pacifism and
racial-generated protest movements aimed at fostering the objectives of the other
side.
These, then, are the challenges that face the major political parties and
the nation in the Seventies.
We must put the nation on a new course, take her in new directions that
point toward a new era of greatness for the American people.
We must lay a. foundation for prosperity without war and we must build a
new strategy for peace.
Our goals are clear. Our purpose is strong. With the help of the American
people, we cannot fail.
###
ADDRESS BY REP. GERALD R. FORD, R-MICH
REPUBLICAN LEADER, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
AT THE ROBERT A. TAFT GOVERNMENT SEMINAR BANQUET
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF JACKSONVILLE
JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA
7 P.M., DECEMBER 16, 1971
FOR RELEASE ON DELIVERY
It is a pleasure to be here tonight. In this rarefied atmosphere of
academia, I feel like a statesman and not a politician.
But actually a man must be a good politician if he is going to be a
statesman, and that is the basic thrust of what I am going to talk about tonight.
Our subject, yours and mine, is "Challenges Facing the Political Parties
and the Nation in the 1970's"--and that subject is well chosen. The challenges
that face the nation are indeed the challenges facing the political parties. The
political party that is most successful during the Seventies will be the party that
best meets the challenges of our times and sells the American people on its
stewardship.
In a political sense, there is one problem that currently underlies all of
the others. That problem is making Government sufficiently responsive to the
people. If we don't make government responsive to the people, we don't make it
believable. And we must make government believable if we are to have a functioning
democracy.
We have all seen many Americans become increasingly skeptical of our
political system-and I speak now not only of the young but of countless older
Americans. They question whether it matters if they do not go to the polls. And
this kind of questioning threatens our democratic system.
There is an answer to this questioning--and that answer is to make government
work in a way that poeple can see and feel.
The other party may come forward with its own ideas but I personally feel
the best cures for popular lethargy and voter apathy lie in returning power to the
people and restructuring the Federal Government.
I am talking specifically about no-strings sharing of Federal revenue with
state and local governments and about an overhaul of Federal cabinet departments.
(more)
-2-
This is not very sexy stuff, but it's what is needed to close the gap
between promise and performance in the relationship between government and the
people.
Federal revenue sharing is a continuing financial transfusion that can save
our federal system and bring new strength to government at the grassroots level.
Money is power, and the idea is to put more of the money where more of the power
ought to be--at the local level. The idea is to put the money where the problems
are, and in that way to solve them.
If we can solve problems instead of just talking about them, people will
believe in government. Right now we have a credibility gap to end all credibility
gaps--and the only way to lick it is to lick our problems.
This is why we need a reorganization of the very framework of the Federal
Government to make it better able to deal with the problems of our people. Under
the plan I have in mind, six of the present 11 cabinet departments would be
consolidated into four new departments: Human Resources, Community Development,
Natural Resources, and Economic Affairs. Hearings have been conducted in the
Congress, and it is safe to predict that at least the new Community Development
Department will see the light of day next year.
I said earlier that the only way to make the American people believers in
their government is to lick our problems. Surely one of the biggest problems of
all is the present welfare system, which is like pouring money through a sieve.
We must reform our antiquated and demeaning welfare system. The present
system is a scandal. It just isn't working. Nobody is for a system that makes it
more attractive to be on welfare than to work.
The answer, I think, is the Administration's new Family Assistance Plan--a
plan tied to the work ethic, a plan that encourages families to stay together, a
plan that would put a floor under the income of every family in America. It is
the key to taking people off welfare rolls and putting them on payrolls. It is the
means to a life of dignity for low-income Americans.
When we talk about moving people from welfare rolls to payrolls, it is only
natural we should speak also of what I call "the new prosperity" prosperity in
peacetime.
Seldom in the history of the United States have we had peace and prosperity
at the same time. Prosperity has usually come with a wartime economy, a booming
defense industry. We are now trying to achieve prosperity at the same time that we
(more)
-3--
end our involvement in a costly and tragic war.
What are we dealing with? We are seeking to bring under control an inflation
that roared ahead almost unchecked between 1965 and 1969. We are seeking to
stimulate an economy that has been throttled back as we have fought inflation, have
partially shut down our defense industries and have cut our fighting forces by a
million men.
The challenge that faces the two major political parties in the Seventies is
whether we make inflation-fighting work while at the same time stimulating the
economy to bring about peacetime prosperity.
We are making progress toward price stability and economic prosperity despite
political in-fighting and the natural reluctance of some Americans to see a
President of the opposite political persuasion succeed in meeting one of the biggest
challenges of our times.
I think Phase 2 of our inflation fight is working. It has a lot going for
it, despite obstructionism on the part of organized labor. At the same time, we
soon will have the stimulus of the tax cuts requested by President Nixon and
enacted by the Congress. This should ultimately mean the creation of thousands of
new jobs.
I might mention the tax dollar campaign checkoff scheme at this point, since
it is part of the new tax bill.
As you know, this would allow a taxpayer to earmark $1 of his Federal income
tax payment for campaign spending by the party of his choice, with checkoffs not
ticketed for either party to go into a general campaign fund. To share in the
kitty, a political party need only get a minimum of 5 per cent of the total
Presidential vote.
I am opposed to the expenditure of tax dollars for political campaigning in
principle. I am just as much opposed to the campaign checkoff provision now as I
was when it was timed to the 1972 campaign.
The argument is made that the campaign checkoff provision takes the
Presidential election out of the hands of the big private donors. But this ignores
what happens when there is a fight over a party's nomination. When that happens
private money flows profusely into certain primary campaigns, and the person winning
the nomination has been helped to the nomination by his assorted financial backers.
Under the campaign checkoff provision, the successful nominee then would go on to
try to win the Presidency with a tax-financed campaign--and still would be obligated,
(more)
-4-
if you will, to those who made it possible for him to win the nomination.
I am also opposed to the campaign checkoff scheme because the millions in
tax funds that would be poured into Presidential campaigning could be put to
better use--could be spent on projects directly benefiting the taxpayer. Viewed
another way, it is unfair to those taxpayers who are opposed to having tax funds
used for political campaigning.
As I mentioned earlier, a political party would need to get only 5 per cent
of the total Presidential vote in order to qualify for campaign tax dollars. This,
it seems to me, would lead to a proliferation of political parties in this country
and might eventually kill the two-party system. Our two-party system has served us
well. In those countries having a multiplicity of political parties, the situation
often borders on chaos.
Rather than seek to use tax funds for campaigning, both major political
parties should concentrate on the concerns of the voters and aim at dispelling
voter apathy by coming up with solutions to the nation's key problems.
Certainly one of those key problems--and one of the challenges for both
political parties--is the restoration of our environment. We have already taken
giant steps toward cleaner air through passage of the Clean Air Amendments of 1970.
Now we must focus on the need to clean up the nation's waterways. We must take
every feasible action necessary to make our lakes and streams clean again. In sum,
we must enter upon a new "get tough" era in the effort to restore clean air, clean
water and open spaces--so that these elements will, as the President puts it, "once
again be the birthright of every American.
There are, of course, many other urban ills--crime, poverty, unemployment,
inadequate housing and transportation. These must be attacked on a regional basis,
rather than in piecemeal fragmented fashion.
Local governments can work together as one in attacking crime, improving
transportation and housing, finding jobs for the unemployed through metropolitan
area job centers.
New attitudes are also necessary at other levels of government.
State and federal officials must come to realize that the problems of the
city go far beyond specific slum areas and social ills. City metropolitan area
governments must be given the resources--money and authority--to solve the larger
problems of the whole community.
(more)
-5-
Federal revenue sharing is the key to such local problem-solving. And there
must be a cutting of controls from Washington and State capitols if local
governments are to have the flexibility to get the job done.
There is still another key problem where initiative must be taken at the
Federal level. That is the problem of health care. Progress is being made. With
bipartisan support, the Congress this year enacted the most comprehensive health
manpower legislation in the nation's history. This new health manpower program is
designed to wipe out the estimated shortage of 50,000 doctors by 1978 and to increase
the number of nurses by 400,000 by 1980.
But the health manpower shortage is only part of the challenge that faces
us. The facts are that our entire health delivery system needs improving.
One of the major parties would meet the challenge by putting the Federal
Government in charge of the entire health delivery system and underwriting all
health care through the Federal Treasury. My party would expand the government
role of financing care for the helpless and needy while improving basic health
insurance coverage for all others. Employers would pay the bulk of the health
insurance premiums for the working population. Catastrophic illnesses would be
covered up to $50,000 for each family member. The plan also would stress
preventive medicine--keeping people healthy instead of sending them into hospitals
with minor ailments and thus escalating the nation's health care bill.
My party believes the health care problem can best be met by improving the
present system, not by scrapping it and erecting a Federal bureaucratic structure
in its place.
We have been talking solely about challenges on the domestic scene. Let us
turn now to the foreign arena.
The challenge in foreign affairs is to build a foundation for future peace
while repelling efforts both on the Right and on the Left to shunt America off into
a new posture of isolationism. We must maintain our position of leadership in the
world if the world is to have any chance to live in peace.
A new quality of realism now dominates American foreign policy. We have
agreed to accept Mainland China as a sovereign nation, adjusting our policies in
Asia to meet changed economic and political conditions there. Following our
military withdrawal from Vietnam, we will continue to provide support under the
Nixon Doctrine for our non-Communist friends in Asia.
(more)
-6-
In our relations with the Soviet Union, new realism on both sides has
recognized a mutual interest in reducing the risk of nuclear war. There are signs
that an agreement on the deployment of nuclear missiles will result from the
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. Should these talks indeed prove successful, they
will show that with hard bargaining and diligent negotiation we can avoid a new
upward spiral of the nuclear arms race. This will free our energies for more useful
tttention to the hot spots of the world, such as the Middle East and Pakistan.
The foreign relations of the United States have changed drastically in the
past three months, with President Nixon's announced visit to China and his planned
trip to the Soviet Union in late May of next year. The President also is
consulting with our Free World partners in advance of his trips to the summit in
Peking and Moscow.
In announcing his visit to Moscow, the President referred to "recent advances
in bilateral and multilateral negotiations involving the two countries.' It is
safe to assume this included the SALT Talks.
Sources close to the Talks, which resumed in Vienna on Nov. 15, indicate a
good prospect for limiting anti-ballistic missile systems on both sides and a fair
prospect for a limit on offensive missiles.
I am convinced the bargaining from strength carried on by the Administration
at SALT has earned the respect of the Russians. The prospects for agreement today
are related, in my view, to our own decision to proceed with strategic weapons
development--including the ABM system--during these Talks.
We are turning from an era of confrontation to an era of negotiation. But
there is no question in my mind that negotiation will prove fruitful only if we
negotiate from a position of strength. This is the lesson which is lost on the
neo-isolationists.
We are achieving success in foreign affairs because we are continuing to show
the world that we are determined to discharge America's responsibilities.
We did not withdraw troops from Europe in the absence of an agreement for
mutual troop withdrawal.
We stood up to Russia in the Syria-Jordan crisis in October of 1970.
We reinforced the Sixth Fleet to compensate for Russian moves.
We are not going to let Russian expansionism in the Indian Ocean go unanswered.
What we are telling the Soviet Union and the world is that we will not allow
(more)
-7-
the other super-power to gain any advantages and we will continue to lead the
world toward peace.
This is the challenge that faces us in foreign affairs--that we continue to
assert world leadership in the face of neo-isolationism, pacifism and
racial-generated protest movements aimed at fostering the objectives of the other
side.
These, then, are the challenges that face the major political parties and
the nation in the Seventies.
We must put the nation on a new course, take her in new directions that
point toward a new era of greatness for the American people.
We must lay a foundation for prosperity without war and we must build a
new strategy for peace.
Our goals are clear. Our purpose is strong. With the help of the American
people, we cannot fail.
# # #