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Text of Remarks by the President to Be Delivered to the 64th Annual National Chamber of Commerce Convention, Constitution Hall [Ford Speech or Statement]
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7343672
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Text of Remarks by the President to Be Delivered to the 64th Annual National Chamber of Commerce Convention, Constitution Hall [Ford Speech or Statement]
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Digitized from Box 25 of the White House Press Releases at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE
APRIL 25, 1976
UNTIL 6:00 A. M., E.D.T.
APRIL 26, 1976
Office of the White House Press Secretary
THE WHITE HOUSE
TEXT OF REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
TO BE DELIVERED TO THE 64TH ANNUAL
NATIONAL CHAMBER OF COMMER CONVENTION
CONSTITUTION HALL
It was exactly one year ago, less a couple of days, that we last met here in Consti-
tution Hall. There were dire predictions by distinguished labor and political leaders
that we were headed pell-mell into a deep depression, that unemployment would
soon exceed 10%, and that only massive Federal action could avert calamity.
Not all of us knew it then, but most experts now agree that was the very time we
hit the bottom of the worst recession in 40 years. Between last April and May things
turned around and began getting better instead of worse. Consider what has happened
since our last meeting. The rate of inflation has been cut more than half, and for
the last three months has held steady at an annual rate of 2. 9%. The personal spend-
able income of American families increased by 100 billion dollars. Farm income
is at an all-time high, and so is production.
The Gross National Product rose during the first quarter of this year at an annual
rate of 7.5%, while a year ago it was over 1.4 trillion dollars, today it is estimated
at over 1.6 trillion dollars. Total retail sales are up more than 17%, automobile
sales are up 70% over a year ago, food sales are up more than 9%, general merchan-
dise is up 13%.
Today, more Americans are gainfully employed than ever before in the 200 years of
our national history -- a total of 86, 700, 000 at latest reckoning. That means
2, 600, 000 more men and women are working today than when we met a year ago.
Unemployment is down from a national rate of nearly 9% in May of 1975 to 7 1/2% --
still much too high, but moving in the right direction.
In short, instead of meeting in the gloomy depths of recession, we are assembled
this spring in the full surge of recovery. Rather than wondering how much worse
things will get, today we see every sign confirming and reconfirming that a strong
and stable prosperity is returning across this great land.
The index of consumer confidence is double what it was a year ago. New factory
orders haverisen from $77 to $90 billion. Individuals and businesses are spending
and investing their money with faith instead of fear. There has been an explosive
release of pent-up energy in the private economy -- America's future looks brighter
day by day. Everything that is supposed to be going up is going up, and everything
that is supposed to be going down is going down.
And all this has happened because the American people did not panic, because the great
American system of free enterprise is working. It is being allowed to work without
massive doses of the wrong medicine prescribed by political quick-fixers for far too
many years. It is working even better than I hoped when I put my faith in the vitality
of private initiative at the onset of the recession.
You are here as representatives of millions and millions of Americans who believe
in private initiative and the free economic system. You are the people who make it
work. I thank you and salute you for what you have done in the past 12 months but
I am not here to celebrate with you a battle that has been won.
(MOR E)
-2-
I am here to tell you the battle has only begun. We have just begun to fight for the
full recovery and lasting prosperity that can be ours, with benefits ever more widely
shared among the American people, only if we continue on the straight and narrow
course which we are now following. There are many hazards for the helmsman on
that course.
On the one side lies inflation, whose cruel rocks have scuttled many great nations
of the past. We have halted the runaway double-digit inflation that prevailed when I
became President 21 months ago. There are encouraging signs monthly that we are
holding inflationary pressures down. But today we face a tougher test, sustaining
the economic recovery that has begun and ensuring steady, stable growth without
starting another cycle of inflationary boom that leads inevitably to another recession-
ary bust.
On the other side loom the dread shoals of unemployment. It never did reach 10%,
but the unemployment rate is still severe, especially among younger workers, minor-
ities, and in certain key industries and metropolitan areas. The statistics are im-
proving, but the corrosive effect of joblessness cannot be comprehended by statistics
alone. Unemployment affects peoples' pride, their hope, their whole attitude toward
the free society and political system whose 200th birthday we celebrate this year.
Clearly, the creation of an economic climate in which every American who wants to
work has a good job is -- along with the safety and security of our nation in a dangerous
world a primary concern of every citizen. Certainly it is mine. But putting Amer-
ica to work is not a job for the President alone. Or for the Congress alone, though
sometimes Senators and Congrssmen seem to think they can abolish unemployment
by passing new laws, such as the dangerously deceptive Humphrey-Hawkins Bill now
pending.
This Humphrey-Hawkins bill, for which Congress has budgeted start-up money, is
a classic example of the way the misguided majority in recent Congresses reacts.
Anything that seems wrong with the economy, the Federal government must rush in
and fix, mainly by spending more billions of dollars.
This vast election-year boondoggle would decree that unemployment must be no
higher than 3% by the end of four years. Never mind that this recession will be long
forgotten by then. If not enough private jobs are available, the Federal government
will make work. How much all this would cost, how long such public payroll jobs
would continue, what the added inflationary impact would be, really defies rational
calculation. Never mind, the law would get the Federal government deeper and deeper
into social and economic planning on a national scale unprecedented in all our history.
I am against the Humphrey-Hawkins. Instead I have proposed tax reductions and other
tax incentives to create more and better jobs in private enterprise. Some were
enacted last year and are obviously working. Others are languishing in the Congress
and should be passed promptly to accelerate employment in hard-hit areas. My
budget provides funds to support adequate unemployment insurance and proven job
training programs until every American who wants work can find it. The difference
between my approach and that of the Congress couldn't be more clear-cut, and I am
glad to join the issue.
Putting America to work is a challenge for all of us who really believe in the free
economic system of private enterprise that has developed over 200 years in the free
political environment of this country. Preventing a resurgence of inflation as recovery
proceeds and our economy expands is also a challenge for all of us. To succeed de-
mands nothing less than reversal of the political trends of recent decades which have
brought continuous growth of Federal spending, higher deficits, more borrowing and
an ever-increasing economic role for government at the expense of the private economy.
This is perhaps the decisive issue of our Bicentennial year, and this issue is being
very clearly drawn on Capitol Hill even as our economic recovery continues.
(MORE)
-3-
The best place to examine this issue now, before it becomes wildly exaggerated in
election-year oratory, is in the Federal Budgets for fiscal year 1977, which begins
next October 1st, as proposed by the President and by the Congress.
This year for the first time there is not one Federal Budget recommendation but
two -- mine as President and the Congressional Budget to be adopted by the House
and the Senate. The Senate has set its tentative target figures and the House is sched-
uled to act this week. Since the two budget committees' recommendations differed
only slightly, I will refer to the completed Senate version.
As businessmen and businesswomen, you know something about the budgetary process.
You know that a budget is sort of real-world substitute for a crystal ball, a careful
compilation of current decisions and best estimates that determines the way we want
to go in the future. Using dollar figures, it fixes priorities in every area of public
policy. These budgets are far more realistic and revealing than political party plat-
forms ever were. My budget and the budget this Congress is about to adopt set forth
in stark contrast the difference between the way I want to go and the way they want to
go.
In providing funds for new military weapons and overall national security needs, an
area of the Federal budget that Congresses have systematically shortchanged by $50
billion over the past decade, the preliminary Congressional figures are substantially
the same as the record $114 billion defense budget I recommended in January. For
the past three months I've worked on the Congress and I'm glad they are getting the
word.
The American people want the finest Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps
money can buy and they don't want our unsurpassed power for peace to become a poli-
tical football this year. I am encouraged by the Congress' reflection of this concern.
But there are plenty of other differences between Congress' budget and mine. They
want to spend $413 billion next year. I propose $396 billion, saving $17 billion in
unneeded Federal expenditures. Also, their budget authorizes over the long-term
$455 billion in new spending. Mine would hold this commitment to $433 billion,
saving $22 billion.
Congress hopes to increase fiscal 1977 revenues by $2 billion, but won't say how. I
want to cut Federal income taxes on July 1 by another $10 billion.
Congress wants to increase the fiscal 1977 deficit by $7.2 billion over my budget
figure, bringing the national debt to a total of $726 billion, 511 million dollars. My
budget would cut the rate of growth in Federal spending in half, looking toward a
balanced budget in fiscal 1979. Simply stated, the budget proposed by Congress is
another blueprint for more Federal spending, bigger Federal programs, higher taxes
and going deeper in debt. My budget is a balanced plan to cut in half the growth of
Federal spending, which has run about $50 billion annually in recent years, to further
reduce taxes, and to start reducing the role of the Federal government in everybody's
affairs.
If my plan is followed, we can have a balanced Federal budget and further tax reduc-
tions by fiscal 1979. If Congress has its way, there is every reason to expect that
our present recovery will be followed by a new round of inflation and then another
recession, with higher unemployment in the same old roller-coaster pattern of the
postwar years.
Last October, I warned all Americans that we were at a crossroads in our history;
that we must decide whether to continue on the path toward bigger government, higher
taxes and higher inflation; or choose a new direction, halting the growth of government,
restoring prosperity, and allowing individuals a greater voice in their own future.
My State of the Union and Budget messages in January provided the details of the new
direction I propose.
Now, in its new Budget process, the Congress has also come to the crossroads. And
it has deliberately decided to stick to the old road -- a road that leads to ruin.
(MORE)
-4-
I supported the idea of a Congressional budget process in the Congress and I welcome
it as President. This year each member of the House and Senate, and all committees,
are compelled to consider the Federal budget as a whole, and to apportion expenditures
in some relation to expected revenues and tolerable deficits. This is the way Presi-
dents and taxpayers have always had to consider their budgets.
The new law that requires the Congress to impose fiscal limits on itself while it is
authorizing and appropriating money certainly should produce a greater measure of
responsibility than the time-honored rule of tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and
elect. At least I hope it will.
But it does not, and should not, do away with the basic differences of economic
principle that exist and must be resolved by our political process. As it turns out,
the dual Executive and Legislative branch budgets sharpen those fundamental differ-
ences and make them mathematically inescapable.
I welcome the contrasting approaches so clearly revealed in the two budget proposals
Congresses' and mine. The upcoming battle of the budgets is a crucial showdown and
with the support of the American people I mean to fight it out if it takes all summer
and more and more vetoes.
So far I have vetoed 48 bills sent me by this Congress and 39 of my vetoes have been
sustained, saving the American taxpayers some $13 billion. And there are plenty more
vetoes where those came from.
But more important, my position is plain and my budget proposals are precise: the
way to sustain economic growth is to encourage our free private economy to expand,
to modernize and to produce more goods at lower prices; the way to create more jobs
and reach full employment is through the private enterprises where 5 out of 6 jobs
are found; real, rewarding, permanent jobs with a purpose and a future.
Furthermore, the position of the majority in the Congress is plain and their budget
priorities are precise. They believe that more direct Federal intervention in our
economic recovery is required to keep it going. They believe higher Federal spending
on a host of social programs will stimulate a more rapid recovery and that the govern-
ment should provide jobs for everybody if private employers don't do so fast enough.
Somehow the Congressional majority still believes, if their budget can be our guide,
that continued massive Federal deficits and borrowings need not be inflationary. Per-
haps, now that the cost of living has stopped skyrocketing, what they are really telling
us is that just a little more inflation is good for you. Well, they are wrong. These
economic theories have been wrong for years, they are wrong now, and we are about
to prove how wrong they are. Every economic indicator says we are on the right course.
I don't intend to be sidetracked now. But we Americans are practical people. We are
interested in results. The American people won't conclude that Congress is wrong
in its economic approach just because I say it is, or you say it is. They want more
and better jobs with paychecks that are worth as much next week as they were last
week.
Two hundred and fifteen million Americans want unemployment to come down and
inflation to stay down. Congress says the answer is another quick-fix like the Hum-
phrey-Hawkins approach. You and I know that won't work. I'll do my part, but the
answer is up to you. I call upon you and millions like you who believe in the free
private enterprise system to go home and put America back to work. I call upon
you and millions of other Americans to demand that Congress help control inflation
by cutting Federal spending and returning more tax dollars to the people who earned
them.
I challenge the businessmen and businesswomen of America, and all the productive
people of this great country, to roll up your sleeves and show the world that our
great free enterprise system is still hale and hearty in this Bicentennial year. If
we fail now, we may never get another chance.
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