On October 7, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 3:05 pm and 3:25 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 285-037 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
This goal is to only be achieved with the active cooperation of 14-man business, farmers and consumers, members of the Congress of our states and over the country.
That means all of us.
Before, we stopped inflationary wage and salary increases, the kind of increases that do not really benefit the working class.
For example, in the past six years, wage earners have received big wage increases.
Every wife of a wage earner knows that these increases have practically all been eaten up by a rise in the cost of living.
Both the Price Commission and the Pay Board will seek voluntary cooperation of business and labor, but they will be backed by the authority of law to make their decisions step.
Their staff will be small.
Stabilization must be made to work not by an army of bureaucrats, but by an army of patriotic citizens in every walk of life.
Because the Committee Council, which is head of the Secretary of the Treasury, will have the power to back up the Pay Board and the Price Commission with government sanctions where necessary.
Our experience for the past seven years was conclusive.
The vast majority of Americans will cooperate wholeheartedly with the system of voluntary restraint.
If there are any who try to take advantage of the patriotic cooperation of their fellow Americans, I can assure you that the government must be, and will be, prepared to act against them.
I am asking the Congress to extend for one year the Economic Stabilization Act, which gives the President the power he needs
to take such action, to act to stop inflation.
Holding the line against inflation means holding all the line.
I am appointing a government committee, from the Committee on Interest and Dividends, to apply the artistry of both these areas, headed by Dr. Arthur Burns, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve.
The nation needs interest rates as low as they can be to meet the credit requirements of federal American families on annual returns and to stimulate noninflationary economic expansion.
I am confident that this can be accomplished on a voluntary basis.
As a safeguard, however, I will ask the Congress to stand by control over interest rates.
Let me turn now to Senator Collins.
Many of my good friends have advised me that the only politically popular position today is to be against profits.
And let us recognize an unassailable fact to be where I'm from.
All Americans will benefit from more profits.
More profits fuel the expansion that generates more jobs.
More profits means more investment that will make our goods more competitive.
More profits mean that there will be more tax revenues paid for the programs that help people in need.
Profits in the American economy would be good for every person in America.
Windfall profits, however, are quite another matter.
Whenever wages and product costs are held down, even though prices are also held down, circumstances could arise, in some cases, that might generate observant profits.
In the few cases where this happens, rather than taxing profits, the Price Commission's policy will be that business should pass along a fair share of its cost savings to the consumer.
We have lived too long in this country with an inflation of psychology.
Everybody just assumes the only direction for prices to go is up.
The time has come for some price reduction psychology.
It is not only in the public interest, it makes good competitive business sense.
Summing up these actions to stop the rise of cost of living, this is what we will do and this is what we will not do.
We will permit some adjustments of prices and wages that fairness demands, but we will not permit inflation to flare up again.
We will concentrate on those major portions of the economy that are the primary causes of inflation.
We will not hesitate to take action against any part of the economy that fails to respond.
We will continue price and wage events until inflationary pressures have brought over control, but we will not make control a permanent feature of American life.
When they are no longer needed, we will get rid of them.
No longer needed, we will get rid of them.
We will rely primarily on the good faith and voluntary cooperation of the American people to make this program work, but we will not let any selfish interest escape the bearer of our strength alone.
I call upon all of you tonight to look at this program not as Democrats or Republicans, workers or businessmen, farmers or consumers, but as Americans.
Let us recognize this profound truth.
What is best for all of us is best for each one of us.
We cannot afford a business of huge latitude anywhere because fighting inflation is everybody's business.
Let us look to the future.
I have said that 1972 will be a very good year for the American economy.
Let me run that estimate tonight.
The coming year can be more than a very good year for the American economy.
It can be a great year for America and the world.
It can be a year for the first nine to fifteen years in which we can achieve our goal of prosperity in a time of peace.
It can be a year in which great progress can be made toward our goal of full employment without the inflation of Roth's working people on the full share of the dollars they earn.
It can be a year in which the American competitive spirit is reborn as we open up new markets for our goods abroad and new careers for our workers.
A year in which we and our international trading partners build upon the most significant initiative of monetary affairs in 25 years.
A year in which we replace the crisis-prone system of the past with a new system attuned to the future.
Historic events will take place on the international scene.
Events that could affect the peace of the world in the next generation or even in the next century.
We often hear people say, these are troubled times.
I say these are great and exciting times.
We are at the threshold of a great new era, an age of movement, of challenge and change in the world.
We have an unparalleled opportunity to create a better world for ourselves and for our children.
Let us dedicate ourselves tonight to make the most of those opportunities, to join in a great common effort to stop inflation and create a new prosperity in a world of peace.
Seven weeks ago I announced a new economic policy to stop the rise in prices to create new jobs to protect the American dollar.
Tonight I want to report to you about how that new policy has been working and describe how that policy will be continued.
On the international front, I am glad to report substantial progress in our campaign to create a new monetary stability and to bring a new fairness to world trade.
Just as this nation welcomes foreign competition, we have a right to expect that our trading partners abroad will welcome American competition.
It is an only development that the world has come to understand that America believes in free trade as long as it's fair trade.
This will mean more sales of American goods abroad and more jobs for American workers.
to further the job front, the House of Representatives yesterday passed a tax program based on my recommendations that will create an additional patented new job for the coming year.
I call upon the Senate, which has begun carrying out this bill today, to act as promptly as the House so that we can move forward to our goal of full employment and peacetime.
I shall meet you immediately in the morning in practice with the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Russell Long, to pursue this objective.
On the inflation front, I can report to you tonight, the wage price movement has been remarkably successful.
Figures published today bear this off.
Wholesale prices in some countries posted the biggest decline since 1966.
Central commodities has declined for the first time in three and a half years.
The primary credit for the success of this first step in the fight against rising prices belongs to the American people.
It is you who have shown a willingness to cooperate in the battle against inflation.
It is you who have answered the call to put the public interest ahead of special interests.
You have made possible this strong beginning in our all-out effort to hold out the cost of living.
Thousands of letters supported the White House as I announced the anti-inflation program August 15.
Listen to what people all across America and all walks of life have to say about that crime.
From a school teacher in New Jersey, I am a widow raising two sons and my teacher's son.
I will lose about $300 because of the freeze.
Yet I sincerely believe we must all support your efforts to bring the economy of America into balance.
Here's a wage earner in Lansing, New York.
As one who is expecting an increase in income this December, let me say I will gladly go without it, if that will help curl inflation.
The wife of a government employee in Hamlet, Texas.
We are willing as a family to afford no raises in order to seize stability and prices.
Let us all hope that Americans will once again realize that we must be willing to sacrifice for a long-range goal and once again have pride in our country.
From a man in Klamath Falls, Oregon.
Your administration's recent freeze on wages and prices means that I will not receive the 4% raise that was written into my contract this year.
Nevertheless, I support your efforts to halt inflation, including the wage freeze.
Fighting against inflation is everybody's fight.
How could thousands of others who have written similar letters?
I want you to know how much it is, Senator.