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7344147
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Remarks of the President at Liberty Park [Ford Speech or Statement]
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7344147
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Remarks of the President at Liberty Park [Ford Speech or Statement]
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White House Press Releases (Ford Administration)
Press Releases
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1976-05-22
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1976
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Digitized from Box 26 of the White House Press Releases at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MAY 22, 1976
OFFICE OF THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY
(Medford, Oregon)
THE WHITE HOUSE
REMARKS OF THE PRESIDENT
AT
LIBRARY PARK
12:17 P.M. PDT
Thank you very, very much, John Dellenbach.
It is nice to be here in Medford's Library Park
with Mayor Ben Fagone, my former colleague in the House of
Representatives Wendell Wyatt, other distinguished guests,
and it is wonderful to have an opportunity to say a few
words to fellow Americans from the great State of Oregon.
I flew out here this morning to spend four days
on the West Coast asking for your support. My very first
stop on this trip brought me right to Library Park in the
City of Medford. I am glad to be here. I know you are all
glad to be here just because it is God's country.
It has been my privilege to travel in every one
of our 50 States, and I found that some States have mountain
ranges, some border on the ocean, some have very fertile
valleys, broad fjords and sparkling rivers, and in some
you can ski and in others you can swim.
But here in Oregon you have it all. You were tle
first State in the history of America to hold primary
elections, which I mention not only because of its historic
interests but because it is a way of getting into the subject
I would like to speak to you about on this beautiful day
here in Library Park.
I am asking my fellow Americans for their support
because I have done a good job for the last 21 months under
the most difficult circumstances. Because I have achieved
and maintained the peace, moved America on the road to
prosperity and restored confidence and trust in the Presidency,
I want a mandate next Tuesday from Oregon and the American
people to finish that job in the next four years.
Consider for a moment where we were in the
very first days and months of my Presidency. Take yourself
back to August 8 of 1974. You will recall that some
well-known economists, labor and political leaders were
predicting that we were heading into a deep depression, that
unemployment would soon exceed 10 percent, that only massive
action by the Federal Government could avert a tremendous
catastrophy.
MORE
Page 2
Inflation had soared to an annual rate of over
12 percent, interest rates were going through the roof,
far, far too many Americans were laid off and could not find
new jobs.
Just about a year ago, we hit the bottom of the
worst recession in 40 years. Many were urging me in the
White House to push the panic button. In the Congress,
the economic downturn set off a clamor for huge emergency
Federal subsidies, for more and more bigger Government
programs, and higher and higher deficit spending.
The prophets of gloom were wrong, and I knew
they were wrong when they were begging me to do this or
to do that. We didn't panic in the Oval Office. I never
lost sight of a deep conviction and belief that I have --
I have had it all my political life -- that a Government
big enough to give you everything you want is a Government
big enough to take from you everything you have.
We resisted the big spending schemes that would
have caused larger and larger deficits and even more
destructive inflation. We rejected the old political
techniques of tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect.
I vetoed 49 bills -- 42 of those bills have been
sustained and the taxpayers of America have been saved
$13 billion. And I will say parenthetically -- not as a
threat, of course -- if the Congress sends me more of those
terrible budget-busting bills, I will veto them again and
again and again.
In contrast to what some people were promoting,
we pursued a calm, steady policy to insure America's economic
health, not just for a month or just for an election year,
but over the long haul we had faith that America's system
of private enterprise would regain its strength.
As a result, we meet here in this lovely park on
this great day not in the gloom of a recession but in the
full surge of economic recovery. 87,400,000 Americans are
on jobs today, and this is an all-time record, and it has
gone up month-by-month-by-month for the last 12 months. We
have added almost 3,300,000 more jobs to the American economy
since the bottom of the recession -- 3,300,000 more jobs than
last May and 700,000 more jobs in the last month. I think
this is concrete, significant evidence that we are well on
the way to the kind of a recovery that we want, and we will
get.
MORE
Page 3
Now, the special nature of Oregon's economy,
its heavy reliance on the products of its wonderful
forests have caused it to suffer heavily economically,
and I am pleased that Oregon's economy has been steadily
improving.
I stopped on the way in from the airport and had
the opportunity of going through one of your great lumber
mills. I was pleased to meet some of your fellow citizens
from this community to see how they take the logs and
make the lumber that we use all over the United States.
You should be proud of those products. You
should be proud of those people, and we are darned glad to
get what you produce for us throughout the rest of the
United States.
I will not be satisfied until every Oregonian
and every other American who wants a job can find a job.
That is what we are after. Since August 8 (9) of 1974, when
I was sworn in, inflation has been cut by over half, and
I intend to get it down even further.
You can look at the record -- 12 percent in
August of 1974; under 3 percent in the first four months of
1976.
Now, in addition to America's economic stability
and security, we are increasing America's national security.
We have the best equipped, best trained, best led fighting
force in the world today, and they are all volunteers.
That is a good record.
To make positive our military strength remains
one of the major objectives, one of the major things that
we are trying to do in Washington on your behalf, we must
keep America's strength unsurpassed. As a way to do that,
in January of this year I proposed the two largest military
budgets in the history of America.
Let me say this: Within four years, and with
a solid mandate from you, we can finish the job and make
America truly secure for future generations.
I deeply appreciate the wonderful opportunity
to come before you today and talk about the policies that
I have implemented -- returning to peace, increasing
prosperity, restoring trust in the White House.
Today, America is at peace. Your sons are not
being drafted, theyare not dying in any battlefield any-
place in the world. My policies will maintain the peace,
secure the peace through strength and perseverence and
leave the legacy of peace for our children, as well as
our grandchildren.
I will continue my policies of cutting your
taxes, expanding the private economy, reducing bureau-
cracy and useless regulation and restraining Federal
spending.
MORE
Page 4
Federal taxes are too high. We cut Federal
taxes last year, and I have recommended to the Congress
another $10 billion tax cut to begun July 1, including
an increase in the personal exemption from $750 per
person to $1,000.
My policies have brought us from the depth of
a recession to a sustained recovery, and will insure that
runaway inflation never again robs us of our loved ones
of the rewards of honest work and lifetime savings.
I will pursue the steady course that has led
us from war to peace, from recession to recovery, from
cynicism to confidence, from faith to fear. (fear to faith)
Finally, I will finish the most important job --
restoration of trust in the Presidency itself. I did
not seek this office, but neither will I shirk it. I
need your support to insure peace, to restore prosperity,
to restore the confidence that is so important for 215
million Americans.
The future really belongs to those who come
after us. Americans have always wanted life to be better
for our children than it was for us because life for us
has been better than it was for our parents.
What do I see ahead for this wonderful country
of ours? I see a strong and confident America, secure
in a strength that cannot alone be counted in megatons,
an America rejoicing in riches that cannot be eroded
by inflation or by taxation.
I see an America where life is valued for its
quality as well as for its comfort, where the individual
is inviolate in his Constitutional right, where
the Government serves and the people rule.
Thank you very, very much.
END
(AT 12:30 P.M. PDT)