Ask the Scholar
Document scope · 1 page
Scholar
Ask about this object, its catalog metadata, its source description, or the page inventory.
For page-specific OCR and visual context, open one of the page chats.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
4525926
label
Marquette, April 23, 1966
core
doc
dtoType
document
citationUrl
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
4525926
sourceUrl
contentType
document
title
Marquette, April 23, 1966
citationUrl
collections
Gerald R. Ford Congressional Papers
Speeches
subjects
Federal budget
Inflation (Finance)
Taxation
iiifBase
thumbnailUrl
largeImageUrl
imageCount
1
hasImages
yes
source
import
hasTranscription
no
Source extras
naId
4525926
coverageEndDate
logicalDate
1966-04-30
month
4
year
1966
coverageStartDate
logicalDate
1966-04-01
month
4
year
1966
levelOfDescription
fileUnit
recordType
description
ocrSource
nara-archive
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
document
url
mediaId
1b34bbbbee5e22ea
ocrText
The original documents are located in Box D20, folder "Marquette, April 23, 1966" 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States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections.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.
Digitized from Box D20 of The Ford Congressional Papers: Press Secretary and Speech File at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
CONGRESSMAN
NEWS
GERALD R. FORD
HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER
RELEASE
FOR RELEASE UPON DELIVERY OF
SPEECH
[marquette Apr. Apr.23,1966]
SPEECH EXCERPTS--
Let's not kid ourselves. We're in a wartime inflation.
During the four months, November through February, wholesale prices climbed
at a 6 per cent annual rate. Now the Johnson-Humphrey Administration is trying
to tell everyone the worst is over because wholesale prices leveled off in March.
It's a see-saw pattern, of course. It changes from month to month. But
let's face it. We see the cost of living move steadily upward and we see left
behind the old saw that "a penny saved is a penny earned."
Inflation is eating away at our savings and eroding the value of the dollar,
and the primary cause of it is the Johnson-Humphrey Administration's passion for
spending the taxpayer's dollar.
I predict the cost of living will jump at least 3 per cent the rest of this
year. It all adds up to high living in the Johnson-Humphrey Administration's
High Society--high living that flows from the Johnson-Humphrey Administration's
high spending, high taxes, high prices--high living that is sweeping us toward
higher prices, higher taxes, probable wage and price controls, and possibly a
recession.
***
Lyndon Johnson is playing a shell game with the nation's taxpayers. Congress
cut income taxes in 1964 and excise taxes in 1965, but how is it going to make
those tax cuts stick?
Mr. Johnson, that great shell game operator, already has shown how good he
is at this business of "now-you-see-it, now-you-don't." This spring he forced
through Congress flashback tax boosts on telephone service and automobiles. Now
he's talking about a $5 billion income tax increase--and trying to wish it away
by asking governors and mayors to hold back on spending and big businessmen to
cut back on expansion plans.
As a kind of afterthought, he has even talked about cutting federal spending.
We Republicans have tried to help him by proposing a 5 per cent across-the-board
cut on all 1966-67 appropriations bills. But if Mr. Johnson has any intention of
cutting federal spending, he hasn't given the word to his rubber-stamp, Democratic-
controlled Congress. On the two House votes taken on the across-the-board cuts
before the Easter Recess, Republicans went on record for spending cuts and
Democrats for more spending.
***
FORD LIBRARY
While the Republican Party is achieving unity, the Democratic Party is
falling into disarray. Disunity in the party in power can only hurt the nation.
The Democratic Party is torn asunder, particularly over Vietnam. We hear
a Democratic senator speak scathingly about his Democratic president. We hear
critical comments made by one Democratic senator about another. We hear Democrats
in the House backtrack on support for the President on Vietnam.
The Democrats are divided and confused. Republicans, determined to keep
the nation on the right course in Vietnam and to turn it back to the right path
at home, are behaving responsibly.
There you have the national political picture in brief today--the Divided
Democrats and the Responsible Republicans.
***
There is confusion among the Democrats, and the man most responsible for it
is Lyndon Johnson.
In trying to hold down prices, he has flogged business and labor to try to
keep them within his 3.2 per cent guidelines while at the same time forcing up
prices through irresponsible federal spending.
After a bit, he pretty much gave up on labor because AFL-CIO President
George Meany said to the Democratic Party: We don't need you as much as you need us.
Then Mr. Johnson started talking about a 5 to 7 per cent income tax increase.
But this was bad, he found. It upset everybody, especially Democratic members of
Congress who will be running for reelection this fall.
So Mr. Johnson tried to get off the higher income tax scare by going back to
his jawbone technique--talk, talk, talk the nation out of inflation. It isn't
working.
He only upset a lot more people. He upset housewives by implying they just
weren't doing a sharp enough job of their shopping. He told them to put on their
glasses, get out their pencils, buy cheaper cuts of meat. He upset the plans of
state and local governments to build for the future. He upset businessmen's
plans to expand.
Mr. Johnson is really confused. He seems to forget that his $112.8 billion
budget calls for $3.2 billion in new spending for Great Society programs while
a war is going on in Vietnam. It's he who should get out the sharp pencil.
Is Mr. Johnson confused? You bet he is. Is this any way to run the country?
You bet it isn't.
Is there any excuse for raising taxes again this year? There is not. We
could avoid a tax increase if Mr. Johnson and the Divided Democrats would
cooperate with the Responsible Republicans.
***