Remarks in Sarasota, Florida

Thank you very, very much, Bill, Congressman Skip Bafalis, Congressman Lou Frey, Mr. Sandegren, ladies and gentlemen and, particularly, that wonderful Riverview High School band and all of the other fine musicians here--we thank you very, very much for the help--and Sarasota:

Obviously, it is a tremendous pleasure for both Betty and myself to be here in Sarasota. It has been great just to meet many of you personally, and I haven't yet sampled it, but we hope to sample some of that wonderful barbecue very shortly.

We thank you all for the tremendous reception that we have had, the wonderful enthusiasm that has been expressed by everybody in Florida, and we thank you from the bottom of our heart.

I have been to a great many political barbecues, and I am always fascinated by barbecue because every time it's offered the ingredients, somehow, are just a little different. And I know some political campaigns have the same approach, but, as President, I have to use a political recipe that is consistent. I don't have the luxury of dealing with each of the 50 States one at a time, telling each one of them what they want to hear. My job is to determine the best recipe for the whole country, 215 million people in 50 States, to decide what is best for the United States of America. And that, of course, is the course of action that I have tried to follow for the last 19 months.

To do that job most effectively and to extend my other responsibilities that will permit--it is important and vital for me to get to know the people of every State, to learn their concerns and aspirations firsthand, and to let them know from me where I stand.

As you know, I am entering every one of the 31 Presidential primaries this year. I want the people of every primary State, as well as those in others, to take a very close look at my record and at my goals for the future of this great country. I want them to know that I share with them a very deep, a very active faith in the ability of this great country and its people to do superb things in the months and the years ahead.

I want the American people to know that I believe in them, that I trust their judgment, that as long as I am President of the United States I intend to be candid and frank and forthright with each and every one of you to make this system work the way it ought to work.

I happen to think that it is an advantage rather than a handicap for a person to have some experience in a chosen field, and I think on-the-job experience is the very, very best kind. I am proud to say, as many of my good friends from Michigan know, I have been in public service for 27 years--as a Member of the House of Representatives, for almost 9 years as the Republican leader in the House of Representatives, as Vice President and, for the last 19 months, as your President.

Those 19 months, as we all know, began with our country facing some of the most pressing and most serious problems in our country's history. Runaway inflation and ominous beginnings of a recession threatened our economic strength and our economic stability. International tensions threatened the peace throughout many areas of the world. A crisis of confidence in our own Government and in the basic institutions of our society threatened to develop into a crisis of spirit for the American people as a whole. However, with the understanding of the American people the length and the breadth of this country, with their prayers and your support and your help, I set about to do what I could do to meet those challenges, to put America at peace with itself and with the world.

The past 19 months have seen many of these efforts succeed, and with your help we will do even better in the months and years ahead. Everything I see or hear or get from one or more of you individually--I am certain that brighter days are ahead for the United States of America. It's inevitable with our spirit and our determination and our background, and you are the ones that really make it, not those of us in Washington.

Let me cite some things that I think are worthwhile for us to recollect. Our national economy is growing stronger and more prosperous every single day. Unemployment is going down. It is not as low as it ought to be, and it will get lower, but we are headed in the right direction.

Consumer confidence is going up. We have had almost a 180 degree turn in the last several months, and that feeds on itself, and that is going to get better and better. And that is what we need to keep this momentum going.

The Department of Commerce announced just 2 days ago, that the index of leading economic indicators rose by 2.2 percent in January, the largest gain in 6 months. It is just getting better almost every day.

That index showed improvements in the length of the average work week, the job layoff rate, wholesale prices, vendor performance, stock market prices, contracts and orders, net business formations, new orders and building permits. This shows that almost every segment of our economy is rebounding in a strong, dynamic, and encouraging way. We are on the road to a new prosperity in America, and we are not going to be sidetracked now. We are certainly not going to be sidetracked by some of those phony fixes that some people want to prescribe for America.

The rate of inflation has been cut almost in half from what it was a year ago. Real earnings for the average American have increased significantly. We have recovered 96 percent of the jobs lost to the recession, nearly 2,100,000 job gains since last March, and 800,000 in the month of January.

We have cut in half the annual growth of the Federal budget this year, and if we can keep the pressure on and hold the spending down, we can balance the budget in 3 years, cut your taxes, and give you an awful lot more economic recovery of your own. That is our target.

The fact that we have turned the economy around is a credit to the American people who did not panic and to the American free enterprise system which responded to one of its toughest and greatest challenges. The forecasts of gloom and doom were wrong again, because the false prophets among us once again underestimated the courage and the determination and the ingenuity of the American people.

I have never underestimated the American people, all of you and 215 million others like you, and I never will. I thank you for all these great characteristics. We have recovered our economic strength without starting a new round of double-digit inflation and without resorting to unsound inflationary remedies for our present day problems.

Through commonsense steps, I initiated tax cuts for individuals, tax incentives for business expansion and job production, and extended economic cushions for the Americans out of work. We worked our way out of the worst recession in 30 years.

I have always believed the harder you work, the luckier you get. Hard work and hard decisions have made the difference in this recovery. We are lucky we didn't listen to those who would try to spend our way out of our recession instead of working our way out.

In fact, as Skip and Lou know, I vetoed 46 bills since becoming President. The interesting point--and I want you to listen very, very carefully--I did this without endangering or weakening our economic recovery. And incidentally, those vetoes have saved the American taxpayer $13 billion, and we will do it again and again and again.

One of those vetoed bills which some of you were particularly interested in was the so-called common situs picketing bill. We all know that a healthy striving construction industry is vitally important to any real long-term economic stability, whether here in Sarasota or in the Nation as a whole. The common situs bill, as presented to me, might well have threatened that stability. Even in Latin, common situs spells trouble, and trouble we don't need.

Something else that spells trouble, unless the Congress acts promptly, is the problem of deficit spending in the Social Security system. This year, the Social Security Agency [Administration] will pay out $3 billion more than it takes in. Next year, unless corrective action is taken, that deficit in a 12-month period will be $3.5 billion, and it will get worse year by year instead of better.

In my State of the Union Message in January and in St. Petersburg 2 weeks ago, I pledged--and I reiterate it here this afternoon--the integrity and the solvency of the social security system. In my budget for 1977, I am recommending a full cost-of-living increase in social security benefits. They must be paid this year and in the years hence.

As I look around this wonderful group and refresh my memory with the occasions I have had to shake hands with many of you, let me say something that comes from the depth of my heart, and I know you join with me in the same feeling: Aren't we all proud to be Americans? Aren't we proud of America? Aren't we sick and tired of these skeptics and cynics and critics who downgrade and undercut what has been so beautiful in America for 200 years? America needs our support, and we are proud of it, and we are proud to be Americans.

I think it is time we remembered that we are the most richly blessed nation in the history of the world. We have special gifts and special resources and very special responsibilities greater than any other nation in the world.

The social security system, obviously, is something that has to be good, strong. It must be kept secure for this generation and future generations. We must think of the kind of country that we will leave to those future generations in our time.

America, we all recognize, has had its share of problems, but we are going to solve them. We will solve the social security problem. We will solve the economic problem. I am an optimist about our great country, and we will be a great country in the future. In that future that we must chart, at least a part of it is predicated on what happens in the election of 1976. The American people will make crucial and far-reaching decisions this year. Each of you must decide what role you want your government to play in your own life and in the life of your Nation.

Let me sort of simplify something I believe in very deeply. We must never forget that a government big enough to give us everything we want is a government big enough to take from us everything we have.

But in the process of deciding what what we all do in 1976, you must decide what qualities and what characteristics of leadership you expect in your public officials. You must decide what course you want our national economy to follow in the years ahead--a firm, steady course of growth and stability or a course of drastic turns, costly experiments, and increasing government control.

It is the strength and the genius of the American political system that you can make those decisions, each and every one of you, for yourself, and how lucky we are. Election day is a celebration day for freedom. I hope that you will join in that celebration, and I hope that you will give me your support on March 9, November 2, and in the 48 months ahead.

Thank you very, very much.