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Remarks of the President and Question and Answer Session at the Goodrich High School Farm Forum (Fond du Lac, Wisconsin) [Ford Speech or Statement]
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Remarks of the President and Question and Answer Session at the Goodrich High School Farm Forum (Fond du Lac, Wisconsin) [Ford Speech or Statement]
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Digitized from Box 24 of the White House Press Releases at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
APRIL 3, 1976
OFFICE OF THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY
(Fond du Lac, Wisconsin)
THE WHITE HOUSE
REMARKS OF THE PRESIDENT
AND
QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION
AT THE
GOODRICH HIGH SCHOOL FARM FORUM
9:43 A.M. CST
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very, very much, Bill,
Governor Knowles, Mel Laird, ladies and gentlemen:
It is really a great privilege and a pleasure
to have been in the greatest dairy State in the whole
Union for the last day and a half, and the warm welcome
and the wonderful reception I deeply appreciate and to see
this great crowd here this morning touches me very greatly.
But just as Wisconsin and my own home State of
Michigan share the upper Great Lakes, Michigan also shares
your great attachment to America's bountiful dairy and
pasture lands. We cannot compete in the production but we
have the same warmth and affection toward the dairy
production and all the things that make your State so
great.
I also congratulate Wisconsin on all of its
great achievements and its accomplishments, its production
and warm and fine people.
I think all of us recognize that America's
future depends upon America's farmers. Our national
heritage was created by farmers. All Americans --
actually, the entire world -- today depend more than
ever upon all of you.
Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act which
embodied our fundamental belief in the importance of the
American family farm. Lincoln was so right.
Thomas Jefferson, George Washington had shared
the same great vision. They were convinced -- so am I --
that a man with a stake in his own land is a free man. His
family is a free family and together the family farm is
the basis of our free society.
There is a saying in Michigan that the only way
a young person can get started in farming is to marry one
or inherit one. (Laughter) And it is getting much harder
to do either. (Laughter) Particularly the latter. (Laughter)
MORE
Page 2
Not only in Michigan but in Wisconsin, throughout
our country, we have got to do something about this problem.
That is because the individual who inherits a farm is often
too severely pressed to pay the estate taxes on it. Our
outdated inheritance laws, which have not responded to
inflation, are a very real threat to the family farm, and
that is why this Administration is working so hard for
new laws to solve this serious problem.
We must maintain the continuity and the strength
of our family farm. Too much labor and too much love go
into the development of a paying farm to dismantle it
with every new generation. That is particularly true on
the dairy farm where the hours are endless -- and you know
them better than I, those COWS must be milked twice every
day.
Women are also involved, as men are, in the
operation of a farm and every child and every family
contributes his or her share. So it is only fair that
the family farm, already a vital institution, continues to
flourish as a profitable and free enterprise.
You and all farmers must have a fair return for
your long and tireless and hard work. That is your goal
and it will be mine, as I continue to work for strong
markets for our farmers' production.
We must never forget that American farmers must
profit if America is to be a profitable going country.
There must be enough income for each of you to buy new
stock, to replace equipment, to build new barns, to conserve
and to enrich your soil, to adopt new techniques and to
buy essential supplies. That is what keeps the entire
American economy moving.
A decision was required on the unfair competition
on certain foreign dairy imports just a few days ago. The
question involved foreign nonfat dry milk mixtures designed
to evade our dairy import quotas. Importers tried to buy
past our limitations by mixing dried milk with other
ingredients. As President, I will not tolerate such
practices.
Accordingly, last week I signed a proclamation
to put a zero quota on such imports. The last three years
have been the highest three years of net farm income in
America's history. That is the way it should be. That is
the way it is going to be. It took hard, hard work on
your part and it took the right kind of farm policies.
In recent days the world's population passed the
4 billion mark. Looking ahead, we will be hard put to
feed the entire world. There is certainly no time to pull
back our efforts to help increase your productivity and
your efficiency.
MORE
Page 3
For 25-plus years I had the privilege and the
honor of representing farmers, including dairy farmers,
when I served in the Congress. As President, I refuse to
go back to the old, harmful farm practices we had during
most of those years. They meant disaster for too many
farmers. They created great surpluses. They damaged
the free market economy. I will not go back to those
programs that require the Department of Agriculture to
interfere in the daily operation of every farm in America
and I will use every power in my command to inject some
common sense into the operation of the Federal agencies
which seek occupational safety and health and environmental
protection. We have to do a better job in that regard.
We all believe in safety, health and the
environment, but the farmer is also entitled to safety
from those who would create an environment in which his
farm cannot function.
Under this Administration we have worked toward
a minimum of Federal regulation. We are making some headway
but we have got a long way to go and, with your help, in
the next four years we will make the kind of progress that
is needed and necessary to make a better America.
Had it not been for your productivity, it would
not have been possible to increase agricultural exports
to $22 billion in 1975. Wisconsin depends mostly on
imported petroleum. Without the increase in farm exports,
we would have been hard put to pay the increased price for
foreign oil.
Imported petroleum costs America -- this is the
one-year cost -- last year $27 billion, and the figure,
unfortunately, will be even higher in 1976.
I appreciate very deeply what the American farmer
is doing for America. Whether you are a dairy farmer,
raise hogs or grow soybeans, you bolster our economy.
Farm families also enhance our ethical, religious and moral
values, our patriotism and our national character.
To be strong externally, we must reassert
traditional values that strengthen us here at home and
we must reject big Government concepts in favor of a true
partnership in which private land-owning men and women
can achieve prosperity without undue Federal interference.
Farming is far too important to be left to the
politicians in or out of Washington.
MORE
Page 4
To the dairy farmers of America I say you
must have every opportunity to make a fair profit out of your
milk. You must have adequate incentives for full food
production. We must keep the dead hands of Federal
regulation offyour farms so that you can use the live
hands of the farmers and produce and produce and
produce.
As one travels around the world, you see some
nations with other economic and political philosophies.
They have virtually the same tractors and the same bailers
that you use but those nations do not have the greatest
piece of farm machinery ever built -- the free enterprise
system of the United States of America.
We have turned things around in rural America
but we must keep moving in the right direction. We have
much more to do. I am ready, willing and able to work with
you to get that job done. I am fighting to cut Government
spending, to curb inflation, to assure a growing economy
for the future, but this struggle can only succeed if you,
our farmers, will succeed. I am on your side. Let's work
together.
Thank you very much.
Now, let's get to the part that I enjoy the
most. Those good hard questions that always seem to --
QUESTION: I am a producer of raw materials.
I am a little strange to the mike yet.
It is a known fact that pseudo-money to stimulate
our economy will also cause inflation. Why can't it be
known by our lawmakers that our raw materials are our real
wealth and the more we pay for them the more we have to
employ the unemployed, stimulate our economy, and pay our
debts, or to put it short, why does our Government
insist on monetizing debts rather than wealth which ties
in with the takeover of our freedom.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, as I understand the question,
your are in effect saying why do we have Federal deficits
and why do we have the Federal debt that we have. Is that
correct, sir?
MORE
Page 5
QUESTION: Well, partly, but if the farmers were
paid for their product, that money would multiply and help
the whole Government. In the years that the farmers were
paid we had no deficit in Government, and if the farmers were
paid for their product, then we could employ unemployed
and everybody would have more money.
THE PRESIDENT: I totally agree with you, sir, that
in order to have a healthy, prosperous economy in the
United States we must have a healthy agricultural segment
of our economy.
QUESTION: That is right.
THE PRESIDENT: Now as I indicated in my prepared
remarks, the last three years we have had the highest three
years of net farm income in the United States. That does not
mean that every segment of agriculture has profitted as well
as others. This year the cotton farmers are doing very well.
The previous year or two they did not do well. A year or so
ago some other segments of our agriculture were doing well.
They have had a fall-off. The cattle producers are now
having a difficult time. What we have to do is try to get
some basic stability so that all agriculture does well, and
if it does, then the farm machinery producers will do well,
the banks will do well, the American people will be well
fed. But we have gone through a traumatic period in the
last 20 months, for example. Our economy was seriously upset
by the oil embargo. We had a three times increase in
petroleum costs because we were so dependent on foreign
imported oil.
We have got to get this imbalance rectified so we
have an economy which is a stable, upward trend. I think
we are making headway. Inflation has been cut in half.
Unemployment is going down. Employment is going up, and
this will have a stabilizing effect, and we are headed for
a balanced budget in the Federal Government if we can get
the Congress to cut the rate of growth in Federal
expenditures, and I think we are going to do it.
QUESTION: The Federal Reserve Board regulates
our monetary system, and it is a good tool to be used when
the economy is overheated, but when this happens, it causes
undue hardship for that individual that has just started
or expanded his business and his funds are committed and the
only way he can get out from underneath this is liquidation.
What do you feel can be done to alleviate that problem?
MORE
Page 6
THE PRESIDENT: You are exactly right that
the Federal Reserve Board controls the supply of money
and basically the interest rates throughout the country.
In the past we have had too much fluctuation, they have
either contracted too severely or they have inflated it
too greatly and the net results is, to some extent at least,
they have contributed to the peaks and valleys in our
economy. Under the present leadership in the Federal
Reserve Board they have agreed to have a range of increase
in the supply of money of four and a half to, I think,
seven percent and that is a reasonable range, depending
upon the fiscal policy of the Federal Govermment and
other factors.
At the present time, as I understand it, they are,
more or less, in the middle of that range over the two or
three or four month period, and, consequently, it does appear
that interest rates are falling. I know the Federal Government
is paying less today than it did a few months ago for the
money it borrows and long-range interest rates are beginning
to ease a bit.
I don't think we have to take any dramatic action
right now. It is my understanding that savings and loans
and mutual loaning institutions have had a great inflow
of money from the American people putting it in there for
their savings and that, in turn, is going to make not only
more money available to those that have to borrow, but money
available at a lesser interest rate.
So I think we are moving in the right direction,
and I can assure you that the Federal Reserve Board is
cognizant of the precise problem you are talking about
and we will try to make certain that they don't pinch
off anything to create the problems that we have had in
the past on some occasions.
QUESTION: Thank you.
QUESTION: I'm from Campbellsport where you had
breakfast this morning.
THE PRESIDENT: A real good breakfast. More than
I could eat.
MORE
Page 7
QUESTION: Mr. President, how are you justifying
Mr. Meany's delaying action of the grain shipment to Russia?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, the decision on Mr. Meany's
part to embargo grain shipments, I think, was unjustified,
but the problem was, how do we solve it?
Now, if there had been court action and some
people had undertaken court action to stop it, that would
have been a long process. It would have taken under our
court system a local court decision, it could have been
appealed, it could have been appealed for a period of six
or eight months, and the whole shipment of grain would have
been held at the ports and that would not have helped
anything because grain would have backed up all the way to
the farms here in Iowa and Nebraska and Wisconsin, and
elsewhere.
So the better way to do it was to undertake
what we did -- was to negotiate a long-term grain shipment
arrangement with the Soviet Union so we have a guaranteed
minimum of 6 million tons per year and for five years. In
that way we got the labor unions to back off and we could
continue to ship the grain that was already contracted for
and we didn't have the back-up that would have created
a catastrophy in transportation and a storage problem for
the farmers on their own farms.
So in order to avoid that we did what we did.
It was not capitulation to Mr. Meany, it was a practical
solution to a practical problem and we ended up with a
firm arrangement for the shipment or the purchase of at least
6 million tons of American grain, an assured market and
the family and farmer is going to be the beneficiary.
QUESTION: Mr. President, I am president of the
Lake Winnebego Area Health Systems Agency. I am very
concerned as a farmer about rural health care or the lack
of it. Even in the best of rural areas health care is
wanting and this situation does not appear to be changing
since statistically the doctors in the rural areas are older
doctors and it is questionable for replacement.
What do you have as a program to help rural
health care and the rural health care needs?
THE PRESIDENT: In the first place, in the last
five years there has been a tremendous increase in medical
school education facilities. Mel Laird had a lot to do with
that program when he was in the Congress. We are expanding
our medical schools. We have many, many more doctors being
trained all over the country. We have a number of new
medical schools. So the supply of doctors will increase.
MORE
Page 8
The problem is how to get them out into the
rural communities. I am told that there is a growing
trend as they discuss with medical students what they
want to do, whether they want to be a specialist or a
general practitioner, et cetera, that more and more of
them for a wide variety of good reasons are indicating that
they want to move to our small towns and into rural
America. That is one trend that I think will help solve
the problem you are discussing, particularly with more
doctors. There are so many of them in most of our major
metropolitan areas that it is not a good ratio and we need
the ratio changed.
But the other problem of how to get our Federal
funds for health care properly distributed- I recommended
a change from the 26 categorical grant programs that we
now have in the Federal Government for health care in one
block grant program. And what does that mean? It means
that the State of Wisconsin, for example, that has many
rural health problems, will get a total sum, as much as
they have gotten in the past from the 20-some categorical
grant programs.
That money will go to the State agency and
the State agency can then decide how they want to distribute
that money, and how it is done in Wisconsin will probably
be different than how it is done in Pennsylvania or in
South Carolina or in Florida. So your local people at the
State and local level can decide how that Federal money
will be spent, and I suspect that people in Wisconsin will
have a little influence on how your State people make
those decisions so a greater proportion of those funds can
go to rural Wisconsin, but that is a local decision with
the same or more Federal money made available.
QUESTION: Thank you very much, Mr. President.
QUESTION: Mr. President, my wife and myself and
family operate just a medium-sized dairy farm, I would say.
You touched on the transferring of estate before and the
amount of exemption involved and so on, and this is a concern
that I am very interested in. I feel that it is extremely
outdated.
The modern family dairy farm has an investment of
anywhere from $250,000 to $300,000 -- many of them are much
larger, some are smaller, but I would say a good share of
them come in that category. I feel that the exemption
should be raised so that this property could be transferred
to a spouse who is remaining, at least, I would say, to the
area of $240,000 to give them a little opportunity to
transfer this without being taxed out of existence.
I would like to hear your views a little more
extended.
MORE
Page 9
THE PRESIDENT: Well, the present law which was
passed in 1942 provides for a $60,000 exemption and no real
provision for any relief in the payment of the estate tax
monies that are owed. I have recommended that that $60,000
exemption be increased to $150,000 and, in order to help
those who have an estate of more than $150,000 the remainder
that is taxed, the payments for that can be spread over
a five-year period with no payments and the payments that
are left would be spread over a 20-year period at four
percent interest on annual increments paid.
So it does provide for better than a double
increase in the exemption, from $60,000 to $150,000, plus
the capability to spread the payments for any additional
tax over a 25-year period. Instead of having to borrow the
money from a bank and pay whatever the bank charges, you
will have a five-year moratorium and then 20 payments,
paying the Federal Government four percent interest. I
think that is a good way in which to help finance the
transfer of the farm from one generation to another.
Now, this is presently before the House Committee
on Ways and Means, which is the taxation committee of the
Congress, and I hope that that legislation or something
comparable to it will be enacted by the Congress this
year. It is long overdue.
QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President.
QUESTION: Mr. President, I am a dairy farmer
from Sheboygan County and the town of Greenbush. I must
say I would like in my heart to support you because I
believe you are an honest and a good man, but your farm
policy from my point of view leaves much to be desired and
I refer specifically to the cheap food policy of Mr. Butz.
I would like to ask you if you would consider
removing Mr. Butz from office because of this policy and
if you would also consider some kind of a method of
establishing some kind of a board or something, an advisory
board maybe, where we farmers from the grassroots level
could possibly help you in establishing farm policy and
give you advice on what we really need?
THE PRESIDENT: I respectfully disagree with you.
I think Earl Butz is the finest, or certainly one of the
finest Secretaries of Agriculture this country has ever
had, and I will tell you why.
MORE
Page 10
Before Mr. Butz became Secretary of Agriculture,
we had farm policies which resulted in unbelievable
surpluses being owed or owned by the Federal Government.
They had piled up to the extent that Uncle Sam, your
Government and my Government, was paying almost $400
million a year just in storage policies. There were
storage fees. That is not a good farm policy. That kind
of a farm policy with the heavy surpluses overhanging
the market kept farm prices down.
Farm prices generally have gone up under Secretary
Butz' policies and programs, and we don't have any
surpluses and we are selling more agricultural commodities
all over the world than we ever have in the history of
the United States.
The worst kind of farm policy would be one to
go back to this surplus that we had for 15 or 20 years
because those surpluses depress your farm prices and
Mr. Butz has sought to get rid of them, we have gotten
rid of them, and farm prices are better now than they
were when he took over.
All I can say is we are going to do everything
we can to keep surpluses from getting accumulated and
depressing farm prices. We are not going back to those old
farm policies which in many, many cases contributed
significantly to the flow of family farm owners from
the farm to the city. We want to reverse that policy and
get more people owning family farms in this country.
Now, on the second question that you asked, I
have established what we call the Farm Policy Board. It
is a Cabinet policy -- a policy committee, the chairman
of it is Secretary Butz. It has three or four other
Cabinet members plus other top advisers. That agricultural
policy committee will recommend to me policies as to farm
decisions of one kind or another.
I think that incorporates the best thinking
of the people in the Executive Branch of the Government,
but I am sure that Secretary Butz himself, in the
Department of Agriculture, consults freely with the Farm
Bureau, the various dairy organizations, the Farmers
Union, the Grange and all of the others to get their
considered judgment as he recommends farm policy to the
board and they to me.
We want the input of agricultural people at
the grassroots level, and I am sure that the department
is getting them and by the meetings that I have held in
Illinois, the one in Wisconsin last week and the one
here this week, I am getting a pretty good input, too,
and I like it.
MORE
Page 11
QUESTION: Well, Mr. Ford, I will agree with what
you said about the opposite of the policy that we have, but
I think somewhere in between there must be a policy where we
can make more stability in agriculture. The dairy portion
of agriculture has been hurt extremely along with the livestock
portion. We cannot tolerate, peaks and lows when we must live
in these lows for -- not the last time was an 18 month period,
and particularly the young farmer with a huge amount of
borrowed money has found it nearly impossible.
This is what I mean, that we have to have something
different than that.
I thank you for the privilege of talking to
you.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much.
QUESTION: Mr. President, I am a dairy farmer
from Fairwater, Visconsin. It might just interest you
to know that I am also President of the Ripon Republican
Club, birthplace of the Republican Party.
I want to, first of all, commend you on all
your vetoes that you have made in Washington and even the
dairy support veto, but it bothers me. I am wondering, what
do you plan on doing about labor? They keep on striking and
they get higher and higher wages and the cost is passed on
to those of us who buy the supplies and the tractors.
Probably three-quarters of us can hardly afford anymore
to buy a new tractor, they start at $10,000 and they run
up.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, first let me thank you for
mentioning the vetoes. I vetoed 46 bills in 19 months.
Thirty-nine of those vetoes have been upheld by the Congress
and as a result of those vetoes and 39 of them being sustained
by a third of the Members of either the House or the Senate,
we have saved the taxpayers $13 billion.
We are engaged right now in a very difficult
negotiation between the truckers and the Teamsters. It is
a tough negotiation and I got word this morning that there
had been a settlement of approximately 60 percent of the
trucking industry and there are several other segments of it
that have not yet settled, but they are optimistic that that
will take place.
This is the kind of a negotiation that I think
has to take place between labor and management and only as
a last resort should the Government get in and use the
legislation that is available. It is far better, from our
national point of view and the philosophy that I think most
of us have, that the parties themselves should settle their
differences.
MORE
Page 12
We are trying to hold down to the extent that
we can. Indirectly we don't want to go back to wage and
price controls. I don't think agriculture wants a wage and
price control policy, it was disastrous and the gentleman
that I talked to a minute ago probably was thinking of the
90-day freeze that we had on cattle prices in 1971, as I recall.
It was disastrous and caused some of the problems that later
took place.
We have got to make sure that labor and management
understands that they have to act in the national interest
as well as in their own interest and here is what the
Secretary of Labor, Bill Usery, is trying to do -- to convince
both parties as they negotiate, they just can't get a bigger
piece of the pie, they have to understand that all of us will
suffer, including themselves, if they are too selfish in
their negotiations. We are trying to keep down some of these
costs, the labor costs, in a responsible way, but for us to
put wage controls on, I think, would not be the answer.
I think it would be the wrong approach just like it was
the wrong approach on food prices two or three years ago.
QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President.
QUESTION: I am a Winnebago County dairy farmer,
I guess I am considered a young farmer. I would like to add
that I am pretty happy with dairy farming the way it is,
I think the efficient farmers who are doing a good job are
making a pretty good living right now.
My question is I am at kind of a loss as to who to
support for President. I think you are very sincere in being
here, but I wonder how much emphasis we have only being five
people out of a hundred who voted for you. It just seems to
me that people who are going to get elected President are
going to have the support of the non-farm people because
we don't have that much voice.
Another question is it seems to me that George
Meany has more influence on our foreign grain policies than
you do, and I would like your response to that.
THE PRESIDENT: I would categorically disagree that
George Meany has more influence on our grain policies than
I do. I made the decision for us to move to long-term
agreements with the Soviet Union. I think that is in the
best interests of agriculture because if you look at the sale
of grain to the Soviet Union, going back to 1971, in one year
you will have virtually no sales. The next year, in 1972,
we had around 13 million tons of grain sold to the Soviet
Union. The next year we had virtually no such sales. It
has been a yo-yo, a peak and valley proposition, and that has
been very disturbing to our grain crop sales throughout the
world.
MORE
Page 13
Now we have a guaranteed 6 million ton per year for
five years and we can sell them higher if we want to, and if
the farmers want to sell more than that and the Soviet Union
wants to buy it, they can make the deal.
So I respecfully disagree that Mr. Meany has anything
to do with foreign agricultural sales policy, he has none.
Let me just indicate another area where Mr. Meany
and I have many, many differences. I vetoed the common
situs picketing bill much against his wishes.
Now I got off the track here a little bit (Laughter),
but I just wanted to make sure that I was running the Government
and nobody else. (Laughter)
QUESTION: Thank you very much. I realize you have
a tough job and I wish you good luck.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much.
QUESTION: Mr. President, I am a dairy farmer here
in Fond du Lac County and also Chairman of the Agriculture
Committee of Fond du Lac County.
I have one question in regard to imports. We
in Wisconsin are now in the process of the referendum vote
by the dairy farmers as to a two cent check-off as far as our
milk advertising program is concerned. There are a lot
of us here in this room that are very much interested in
this. We believe in advertising. We believe we have to do
this to create a market for our product.
Now if we can establish this, if we can get this
job done, what kind of a guarantee can we have from the
Federal Government that once we have a market created that
the Government does not open up their doors to imports to
the point where they take up and make up the difference
between our profit and loss?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, let me assure you that this
Administration will not tolerate foreign Government subsidized
dairy products, period. We will use the best wisdom we have
to make sure that there is a fair treatment as far as your
products competing with any foreign products, subsidized or
non-subsidized.
I think we do have to be honest with one another
and say that if we expect to sell $22 billion worth of farm
commodities overseas, there are some foreign imports that have
to be sold in the United States, it has to be some balance.
We can't sell to them unless we buy from them, but there
certainly will be no subsidization of foreign farm exports
to the United States -- that is absolutely clear.
MORE
Page 14
In the other areas like I mentioned on the non-fat
dried milk mixture proposal, when they did that we cut them
off, period, and we will act just as decisively on other matters
of that kind.
QUESTION: Thank you.
QUESTION: Mr. President, this will be the last
question.
THE PRESIDENT: We will take one more over here
after this. Okay.
QUESTION: Mr. President, Manitowoc County Ford
Headquarters head coordinator.
My major concern is what is happening in the
Postal Department. We have just had this three cent raise
and unless I heard very incorrectly last night on the media
somewhere within the near future we could go up to 36 or
38 cents for one ounce of first class postage which could
put small businessmen who depend on the charge system or
perhaps mailing as a major part of their business out of
business. Do we in Federal Government have any plans beyond
just simply trying to cut back small Post Offices or will we
perhaps make our American people have to cut back a little
bit of their services or do something about this so that some
of us small businessmen can stay in business?
THE PRESIDENT: The Postal Service problem is one
of the most perplexing ones we have. We had a system up
until about four years ago that was rampant with politics.
Democrats abused it, Republicans abused it, and it was in a
mess, to be honest with you. The Federal subsidy was growing
every year. We went to a Postal Service and supposedly,
and I hope it is true, wiped out all politics in the Postal
Service. They have been trying to put it on a pay as you
go basis. It was recognized that during this transition
period there would have to be a subsidy. At the present time
the Federal Government is contributing about a billion dollars
a year to subsidize the Postal Service plus whatever other
revenues they get.
I must say in many respects I am disappointed the
way it has turned out except I think it is better than what
it was. Now there are some areas where I think the Postal
Service will have to make some adjustments in service;
otherwise, it will require more subsidy from the Federal
Government.
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The head of the Postal Service says he needs
another billion dollars from the Federal Treasury. Well,
that is $2 billion in subsidy in 12 months. I think there
has to be a better solution than that. We have got a special
study going on now in the Office of Management and Budget and
they are working with the Postal Service to try and see if
there can't be responsible economies, some better
personnel management policies, but I think everybody probably
will have to tighten their belt -- the management, the
employees, and the recipients -- unless we are going to call
on a bigger and bigger subsidy or less and less service.
QUESTION: Is there any possibility of having private
industry handle part of this or is that unconstitutional?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, it is disallowed by law, but
let me tell you what probably would happen. There are some
companies that want to, in major metropolitan areas, move
in with their postal system which is now precluded by law.
Frankly, that is where the Post Office service or
Postal Service makes money. So if you take a private
delivery system and let it just go into the markets
where the Postal Service makes money, the Postal Service will
be in worse shape.
So I don't think that is an answer either because
they will take the cream of the area of revenue and then the
Postal Service will have more problems, not fewer.
QUESTION: Thank you very much, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes?
QUESTION: I am a dairy farmer down at a little
town called Waukesha, a little south of here.
About two months ago you vetoed a price support
bill at 85 percent of parity that disappointed me a whole
lot, but I applaud you for raising it as much as you did,
ordering Secretary Butz to give us the new rate on April 1.
I understand that there is a new bill in the hopper at the
level that is more to your liking at 80 percent of parity for
the next two years. Will you sign this bill when it hits
your desk?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, as I understand, Earl Butz
has agreed, and I fully approve, to increase, as of April 1,
the price supports to 80 percent of parity and we have agreed
to review the situation every quarter. I think it is better
to have that kind of flexibility as long as you all understand
that we will continue to do what we have done -- and we have
not broken an agreement yet, we don't intend to break one.
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I think flexibility is better than a rigid figure
set at a certain level. I can assure you when we make an
agreement with the dairy industry we will keep it, and the
record shows we have in every instance.
So without making a final judgment on a piece of
legislation, I am just trying to explain to you how I
generally feel. I usually have a policy of saying I will
or won't veto something until I read the fine print and that is
not a bad idea.
So generally I think we have got a good arrangement,
that every quarter we are going to review it and we are not
going to break any agreement, and that generally is a better
approach than some firm, fixed figure. as I see it.
QUESTION: I disagree with you on that, but that is --
I think that I like t e two-year time on this thing because
it runs quite a bit after the election, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: We will take a good look at it,
but I -- (Laughter)
Let me say this to the gentleman that just spoke
to me. I wish we could get politics out of the farm problem --
that would be best for the farmer and best for the country.
I have enjoyed the opportunity to be here. I
deeply appreciate your views as you have expressed them
in questions. If we have had some disagreements, and in a
couple of instances we have, the great thing about these kinds
of meetings, as I see them, is that you can disagree without
being disagreeable, and that is the strength of this
country.
Thank you very, very much.
END
(AT 10:32 A.M. CST)