Newspaper Page Text
— Griffin Daily News Thursday, January 16,1975
Page 12
Transcript of Ford’s message
WASHINGTON (UPI) -
Transcript of President Ford’s
State of the Union address
Wednesday to Congress:
vj>f . Twenty-six years ago, a
freshman Congressman, a
young fellow, with lots of
idealism who was out to change
the world, stood before Sam
Rayburn in the well of this
House and solemnly swore to
the same oath that all of you
‘ took yesterday, an unforgetta
ble experience, and I congratu
late you all.
Two days later, that same
freshman stood at the back of
this great chamber, over there
someplace, as President Tru
man, all charged up by his
single-handed election victory,
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sth & Solomon Spalding Square
reported as the Constitution
requires on the State of the
Union.
When the bipartisan applause
stopped, President Truman
said:
“I am happy to report to this
Eighty-First Congress that the
State of the Union is good. Our
Nation is better able than ever
before to meet the needs of the
American people and to give
them their fair chance in the
pursuit of happiness. It is
foremost among the nations of
the world in the search for
peace.”
Today, that freshman mem
ber from Michigan stands
where Mr. Truman stood and I
must say to you that the State
of the Union is not good.
Millions of Americans are out
of work. Recession and inflation
are eroding the money of
millions more. Prices are too
high and sales are too slow.
This year’s Federal deficit
will be about S3O billion; next
year’s probably $45 billion. The
national debt will rise to over
S6OO billion.
Our plant capacity and
productivity are not increasing
fast enough. We depend on
others for essential energy.
Some people question their
government’s ability to make
hard decisions and stick with
them. They expect Washington
politics as usual.
Yet, what President Truman
said on January 5,1949, is even
more true in 1975.
We are better able to meet
our peoples’ needs.
All Americans do have a
fairer chance to pursue hap
piness. Not only are we still the
foremost nation in pursuit of
peace, but today’s prospects of
attaining it are infinitely
brighter.
There were 59,000,000 Ameri
cans employed at the start of
1949. Now there are more than
85,000,000 Americans who have
jobs. In comparable dollars, the
average income of the Ameri
can family has doubled during
the past 26 years.
Now, I want to speak very
bluntly. I’ve got bad news, and
I don’t expect much, if any
applause. The American people
want action and it will take
both the Congress and the
President to give them what
they want. Progress and
solutions can be achieved. And
they will be achieved.
My message today is not
intended to address all the
complex needs of America. I
will send separate messages
making specific recommenda
tions for domestic legislation,
such as the extension of the
General Revenue Sharing and
the Voting Rights Act.
The moment has come to
move in a new direction. We
can do this by fashioning a new
partnership between the Con
gress on the one hand, the
White House on the other and
the people we both represent.
Let us mobilize the most
powerful and creative industrial
nation that ever existed on this
earth to put all our people to
work. The emphasis of our
economic efforts must now shift
from inflation to jobs.
To bolster business and
industry and to create new
jobs, I propose a one-year tax
reduction of sl6 billion. Three
quarters would go to individu
als and one-quarter to promote
business investment.
This cash rebate to individu
als amounts to 12 per cent of
1974 tax payments —a total cut
of sl2 billion, with a maximum
of SI,OOO per return.
I call on the Congress to act
by April 1. If you do, and I
hope you will, the Treasury can
send the first check for half the
rebate in May and the second
by September.
The other one-fourth of the
cut, about $4 billion, will go to
businesses, including farms, to
promote expansion and create
more jobs, the one-year reduc
tion for businesses would be in
the form of a liberalized
investment tax credit increas
ing the rate to 12 per cent for
all businesses.
This tax cut does not include
the more fundamental reforms
needed in our tax system. But
it points us in the right
direction —allowing us as
taxpayers rather than the
Government to spend our pay.
Cutting taxes, now, is essen
tial if we are to turn the
economy around. A tax cut
offers the best hope of creating
more jobs. Unfortunately, it
will increase the size of the
budget deficit. Therefore, it is
more important than ever that
we take steps to control the
growth of Federal expenditures.
Part of our trouble is that we
have been self-indulgent. For
decades, we have been voting
ever-increasing levels of Gov
ernment benefits —and now the
bill has come due. We have
been adding so many new
programs that the size and
growth of the Federal budget
has taken on a life of its own.
One characteristic of these
programs is that their cost
increases automatically every
year because the number of
people eligible for most of the
benefits increases every year.
When these programs are
enacted, there is no dollar
amount set. No one knows what
they will cost. All we know is
that whatever they cost last
year, they will cost more next
year.
It is a question of simple
arithmetic. Unless we check the
excessive growth of Federal
expenditures or impose on
ourselves matching increases in
taxes, we will continue to run
huge inflationary deficits in the
Federal budget.
If we project the current
built-in momentum of Federal
spending through the next 15
years, State, Federal, and local
government expenditures could
easily comprise half of our
gross national product. This
compares with less than a third
in 1975.
I have just concluded the
process of preparing the budget
submissions for fiscal year
1976. In that budget, I will
propose legislation to restrain
the growth of a number of
existing programs. I have also
concluded that no new spending
programs can be initiated this
year, except for energy. Fur
ther, I will not hesitate to veto
any new spending programs
adopted by the Congress.
As an additional step toward
putting the Federal govern
ment’s house in order, I
recommend a five per cent
limit on Federal pay increases
in 1975. In all Government
programs tied to the consumer
price index —including social
security, civil service and
military retirement pay, and
food stamps —I also propose a
one-year maximum increase of
5 per cent.
None of these recommended
ceiling limitations, over which
the Congress has final au
thority, are easy to propose,
because in most cases they
involve anticipated payments to
many, many deserving people.
Nonetheless, it must be done. I
must emphasize that I am not
asking to eliminate, reduce or
freeze these payments. I am
merely recommending that we
slow down the rate at which
these payments increase and
these programs grow.
Only a reduction in the
growth, the growth of spending
can keep Federal borrowing
down and reduce the damage to
the private sector from high
interest rates. Only a reduction
in spending can make it
possible for the Federal Re
serve System to avoid an
inflationary growth in the
money supply and thus restore
balance to our economy. A
major reduction in the growth
of Federal spending can help
dispel the uncertainty that so
many feel about our economy,
and put us on the way to curing
our economic ills.
If we don’t act to slow down
the rate of increase in Federal
spending the United States
Treasury will be legally obligat
ed to spend more than $360
billion in Fiscal Year 1976 —
even if no new programs are
enacted. These are not matters
of conjecture or prediction, but
again a matter of simple
arithmetic. The size of these
numbers and their implications
for our everyday life and the
health of our economic system
are shocking.
I submitted to the last
Congress a list of budget
deferrals and recisions. There
will be more cuts recommended
in the budget I’ll submit. Even
so, the level of outlayws for
fiscal year 1976 is still much,
much too high. Not only is it
too high for this year but the
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decisions we make now will
inevitably have a major and
growing impact on expenditure
levels in future years. I think
this is a fundamental issue we,
the Congress and I, must
jointly solve.
The economic disruption we
and others are experiencing
stems in part from the fact that
the world price of petroleum
has quadrupled in the last year.
But, in all honesty, we cannot
put all of the blame on the oil
exporting nations. We, the
United States, are not blame
less. Our growing dependence
upon foreign sources has been
adding to our vulnerability for
years and years and we did
nothing to prepare ourselves for
an event such as the embargo
of 1973.
During the 19605, this country
had a surplus capacity of crude
oil, which we were able to
make available to our trading
partners whenever there was a
disruption of supply. This
surplus capacity enabled us to
influence both supplies and
prices of crude oil throughout
the world. Our excess capacity
neutralized any effort at
establishing an effective cartel,
and thus the rest of the world
was assured of adequate
supplies of oil at reasonable
prices.
By 1970, our capacity, our
surplus capacity vanished and,
as a consequence, the latent
power of the oil cartel could
emerge in full force. Europe
and Japan, both heavily de
pendent on imported oil, now
struggle to keep their econom
ics or economies in balance.
Even the United States, which
is far more self-sufficient than
most other industrial countries,
has been put under serious
pressure.
I am proposing a program
which will begin to restore our
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Ford makes state report.
country’s surplus capacity in
total energy. In this way, we
will be able assure ourselves
reliable and adequate energy
and help foster a new world
energy stability for other major
consuming nations.
But this Nation and, in fact,
the world must face the
prospect of energy difficulties
between now and 1985. This
program will impose burdens
on all of us with the aim of
reducing our consumption of
energy and increasing produc
tion. Great attention has been
paid to the considerations of
fairness and I can assure you
that the burdens will not fall
more harshly on those less able
to bear them.
I am recommending a plan to
make us invulnerable to cut
offs of foreign oil. It will
require sacrifices. But it, and
this is most important, it will
work.
I have set the following
national energy goals to assure
that our future is as secure and
productive as our past:
—First, we must reduce oil
imports by 1 million barrels per
day by the end of this year and
by 2 million barrels per day by
the end of 1977.
—Second, we must end
vulnerability to economic dis
ruption by foreign suppliers by
1985.
—Third, we must develop our
energy technology and re
sources so that the United
States has the ability to supply
a significant share of the
energy needs of the Free World
by the end of this century.
To attain these objectives, we
need immediate action to cut
imports. Unfortunately, in the
short-term there are only a
limited number of actions
Continued P. 13