Statement by the Vice President of the United States, Federal Programs, at Spokane, WA

As this campaign draws to a close, my opponent is relying principally on one theme

He wants the Federal Government to spend about 15 billion more dollars a year for all kinds of new Federal programs.

He claims he can work it out so that the money can be spent without increasing your taxes or the Government going further in debt.

Then he glibly promises that your wages will be higher and that the prices you pay for food, rent, and clothing will not be.

The truth is that his promises represent the cruelest hoax any politician has ever tried to foist on the American people.

The programs and policies he advocates obviously would mean a much larger centralized government in Washington than anyone before this campaign has ever dared to recommend.

What would his programs do to America? They would destroy the stability of our economic system.

What would this mean to Americans? It would mean

(1) Every worker's take-home pay would be drastically cut - by more taxes, by inflation - or both.

(2) The price of food and clothing would go up.

(3) All Americans would have to pay more taxes - especially the middle and lower income families.

His giveaway program to win this election really is a "takeaway from the poor people" program. It is a program to buy his election with your money and your future.

In the old days, the medicine man could sell a lot of his medicine by promising that it would cure all the ailments of all the people in a community. But he had to get out of town pretty fast because the word soon got around that the whole thing was a hoax.

At first, the political medicine my opponent offered to cure everything sold pretty well. The mistake he made was that he started peddling it too soon. About a week ago it began to dawn on people that what he was offering was not a cure for anything, but actually was a slow but sure poison which would destroy the very economic health of our Nation.

Whether the polls have caught up with it or not, the public has caught up with him. It is my firm belief that the election results on Tuesday will show, that like the medicine man in the old days, he didn't get out of town soon enough.