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Remarks of the President at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds [Ford Speech or Statement]
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7346411
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Remarks of the President at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds [Ford Speech or Statement]
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White House Press Releases (Ford Administration)
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1976
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Digitized from Box 33 of the White House Press Releases at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
OCTOBER 23, 1976
OFFICE OF THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY
(Raleigh, North Carolina)
THE WHITE HOUSE
REMARKS OF THE PRESIDENT
AT THE
NORTH CAROLINA STATE FAIRGROUNDS
12:17 P.M. EDT
Governor Holshouser, Liddy Dole, Dave Flaherty,
distinguished officials and guests:
It is great to get together with one of my
family again, our third son, Steve Ford.
I also wish to express my deep appreciation
for the fact that an old and very dear friend of mine,
Congressman Jim Broyhill, is here.
For many, many reasons, it is a great privilege
and a very high honor to be back here in the Tarheel State,
and I thank you for the wonderfully warm and hospitable
welcome.
In Kansas City, I promised not to concede a single
vote or a single State. I meant it, and let me give you
where I have been to prove the point. Some people have
said, well, I have been spending my time in the Rose
Garden. Some people have been saying I have been hiding
out. Well, here is the itinerary.
Today I was in Virginia, now in North Carolina,
and later in South Carolina; last week in Oklahoma, Texas;
the week before in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and
Florida. I don't think that is hiding out in Washington,
D. C. (Laughter)
A couple of weeks ago I opened up the State
Fair in Texas, but Jim Holshouser told me if I wanted to
see a really big fair, I would have to come to North
Carolina. I am here and I love it. Thank you.
Well, while I am here, let me extend a very
special invitation to come to Washington next January for
the inauguration of Jerry Ford and Bob Dole; or, to put
it another way, you all come. (Laughter)
In Kansas City, I knew I had picked an outstanding
teammate or running mate. Bob Dole has a superb record,
not only in the House of Representatives but in the United
States Senate. But I didn't really understand that I
got such a big dividend when we got Liddy Dole with Bob
Dole, and thank you very, very much.
Let me, express my deepest appreciation to your
outstanding United States Senator Jesse Helms, and the
two fine Congressmen that I know so well, Jim Broyhill
and Jim Martin. Let's add a few more just like them on
election day.
MORE
Page 2
Over the years, I have developed a very close
and warm friendship with the people of this State, dating
back -- I went to law school here one summer at the
University of North Carolina (Laughter), I spent a few
months in Chapel Hill -- (Laughter) -- assigned there by
the Navy in World War II. My oldest son, Mike, and his
wonderful wife, Gayle, graduated from Wake Forest and,
of course, as I mentioned earlier, we are delighted to
have that wonderful Southern accent, that beautiful gal,
Elizabeth Hanford Dole, from Salisbury, North Carolina.
But let me talk very straight to you for a few
minutes. You know where I stand. I stand on your side
for limited Government, for fiscal responsibility, for
rising prosperity, for lower taxes, for military strength
and for peace in the world. Not a single young American
is fighting or dying on any foreign soil today, and I
intend to keep it that way.
After so many years in which America's defensive
needs were shortchanged, I proposed the two largest
military budgets in America's history, and I was able
to convince the Congress to stop slashing away at military
spending.
After so many years of runaway growth in the
Federal budget, I submitted a budget for this fiscal
year which cut the rate of growth in Federal spending
in half. I have held the line on Government spending
with 64 vetoes and saved you, the hard-pressed taxpayers,
$9 billion.
Because I have not been afraid to say no to
excessive spending, we will be able to submit a balanced
Federal budget by 1978 and, in addition, we will have
another tax reduction for the American taxpayer, particularly
the middle income taxpayers of this country.
My idea of tax reform is tax reduction. I am
sure you recall that I submitted to the Congress a proposal
to increase the personal exemption from $750 to $1,000.
That is meaningful tax reduction to the long shortchanged
middle income taxpayers. Congress didn't pass it, but
I make a pledge to you that I am going to keep the pressure
on the next Congress until they do and, if they don't,
they will hear about it in the next election.
After so many years of uncontrolled inflation,
we have cut the rate of inflation by better than 50 percent.
We will do even better in the future. After the worst
economic recession in 40 years, we have added 4 million
jobs to the American economy in the last 18 months, not
by creating deadend jobs at the taxpayer's expense, but we
have added these 4 million jobs by stimulating the private
economy where five out of the six jobs are in America
today.
MORE
Page 3
Too many people are still out of work. We are
not satisfied with the progress we have made, but more
Americans were on the job in 1976 than ever before
in the history of the United States, nearly 88 million,
and that is a tremendous comeback from where we were
just a year and a half ago. After suffering a tragic
betrayal of public trust just two years ago, America
has had its faith restored in the White House. My
Administration has been open, candid, straightforward,
and we will keep it that way for the next four years.
As I told the Southern Baptist Convention
in Norfolk earlier this year, I firmly believe that
private morality in public service can and must go
hand-in-hand.
I mentioned only a part of the Ford Administration's
record in the past two years, but let me add just a few
more. Farm exports and farm income are at an all-time
high. A major effort is already on the way to cut red
tape in the Federal bureaucracy. We are working for
peace and justice in the Middle East and throughout
the world. In every field, America is on the move,
on the march.
We made an incredible comeback in the past two
years and we are not through yet. You can believe me
when I tell you that America is strong and will be kept
strong, because the American people are willing to pay
for that kind of national security.
You can believe me when I say this Nation is
sound, this Nation is secure, this Nation is on the way
to a better quality of life for all Americans, and this
Administration has earned the trust of the American
people for the next four years.
My record is one of progress, not platitudes;
performance and not promises. We don't need Government
to do everything for us or to tell us everything we can
or cannot do.
MORE
Page 4
We have a great reservoir of talented industry
in this country and it is not all concentrated on the
banks of the Potomac River. You have got it here in North
Carolina; it exists all over America. That is where the
progress will come as we move ahead in our third century
in the United States. More often you will find it on the
banks of the Neuse River here in Raleigh or on the beautiful
New River we helped to save in the mountains of Western
North Carolina, or on the Outer Banks down east.
Let me say I was deeply grateful to your great
Governor Jim Holshouser for listing some of the things
that this Administration has done in working with his
Administration. The relationship between your Governor
and myself is a close one, and I can say -- because I know
a few Governors around the country -- in Jim Holshouser
you have one of the best, and you should be proud of him.
Having spent as much time as I have during my
life in the great Tarheel State, I think :.I know something
about the way the people in North Carolina feel. I don't
think you here in North Carolina are ready to see our
free economy bogged down with even more rules, regulations,
red tape and red ink, and I hope you will register your
opinion loud and clear on November 2.
This great State Fair is a good example of what
people can do by themselves. We have the most productive
farmers in the history of mankind. One American farmer
today feeds 56 other people. The farmers of North Carolina,
as Jim Holshouser said, will bring in their highest income
from their tobacco crop in 1976. I compliment you for it.
We are proud of that productivity.
I want to preserve the family farm in North
Carolina, and throughout America. I have been fighting
all year to revise the estate tax laws to insure that
you won't have to sacrifice your farms just to pay the
Federal tax collector.
I recommended this increase in the personal
exemption in the estate tax from $60,000 to a higher
figure. The Congress finally passed it, and I was pleased
that they raised, on my recommendation, the tax exemption
from $60,000 to something like $175,000 and stretched out
the payments on those estate taxes.
This is constructive legislation because the
family farm means so much to the people of North Carolina,
as well as in the other 49 States. For those who want
to own a home in rural America, I am announcing today
that I have directed the Department of Agriculture to
raise the moderate income limit for rural housing loans
from $12,900 to $15,600.
This change, coupled with the recent increase
in the low income limit from $8,500 to $10,000, and lowering
the interest rate to 8 percent, will greatly increase our
ability to help rural families buy a home of their own and
a home is the most important factor in building a strong
America.
MORE
Page 5
But rural vitality is not all that North
Carolina has going for it. The North Carolina Research
Triangle and the other fine colleges and universities
in this State have helped make America the most advanced
technological and educational society in the history of
mankind.
Just this week America made a clean sweep in
the Nobel Prizes for Economics, Chemistry, Physics,
Medicine and Literature. This is the first time in
history that a singlè country has been the home of all of
these winners. I-am proud to be a citizen of the great
United States of America, and you and I can be proud of
what has been done and we can be proud of the progress
we are going to make in the future.
We have our problems, but in the last two
troubled years we have come a long, long way our long
national nightmare is over; four million new jobs have
been created in less than two years; inflation cut
more than half; trust has been restored in the White
House; America is at peace at home as well as abroad;
we are putting our old angers aside; we are putting our old
problems behind us and healing our wounds.
It is a record I am proud to run on, a record of
the people of North Carolina and concerned citizens --
Democrats, Independents and Republicans -- throughout
America will support on November 2. Give me your mandate
and we will reduce the growth of Government still more.
Give me your mandate and we will insure the integrity of
the Social Security system.
We will improve Medicare so that our older
citizens can enjoy the health and happiness that they
have so richly earned. There is no reason that they
should have to go broke just to get well.
Give me your mandate and we will make sure that
this rich and wonderful nation does not neglect its
citizens who are less fortunate than ourselves but provides
for their needs with compassion and with dignity. Give
me your mandate and we will create a tax structure that
is fair to all, that will preserve the family home, the
family business, the family farm and give industry in
America the opportunity to modernize, to expand, so that
we can create more jobs for the young who are coming
into the labor market.
Give me your mandate and we will expand the
recreational opportunities and restore the healthy
environment of this great country so that we can leave a
legacy to future generations of America. Give me your
mandate and I will lead this nation on the paths of peace
through strength and we will live in peace and freedom
in the United States of America.
MORE
Page 6
I have no fear for the future of America. The
future is our friend, and as we go forward together, I
promise you once more -- as I have promised you before --
to uphold the Constitution, to do what is right, as God
gives me to see the right, and to do the very best that
I can for America. God helping me, I will not let you
down.
Thank you very, very much.
END
(AT 12:37 P.M. EDT)