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 5:10 pm and 5:36 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 286-003 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Because of our strong beginning, because of the determination Americans have shown to pull together during the briefings, I am confident that our further action on Scotland's interest in saving inflation will succeed as well.
That said, I have consulted over the past seven weeks with scores of representatives of labor, business, and finance at the summits of the Congress and state and local governments.
They have been virtually unanimous in their belief that the battle against inflation must be fought here and now.
They are together in their determination to win that battle.
Consequently, I am announcing tonight that when the 90-day freeze is over on February 13th, we shall continue our program of wage and price restraint.
We began this battle against impatient for the purpose of winning.
We are going to stay in it till we do win.
I am appointing a price commission to hold down prices.
It would be made up of persons outside of government, all public men, not beholden to any special interest groups.
Price permission with evolved yardsticks will be a power of extreme threats and rent increases to the necessary minimum to prevent windfall problems.
Its goal will be to continue to drive down the rate of inflation.
That goal, however, can only be achieved with the active cooperation of working men, businessmen, farmers, consumers, members of the Congress, of our state and local governments.
That means all of us.
I am also funding a pay board to stop inflationary wage and salary increases, the kind of increases that do not really benefit the working class.
For example, in the past six years, workers have received big wage increases, but every white worker knows that these increases have practically all been redeemed by a rise in the cost of labor.
The pay boards are made up of representatives of labor, management, and money.
Both the Price Commission and the people will seek voluntary cooperation with the supply, but they will be backed by the authority of law to make their decisions stably.
Their staff will be small.
Stabilization must be made to work, not by an army of bureaucrats, but by an all-volunteer army of patriotic citizens in every law and line.
Our experience over the past seven weeks conclusively demonstrates that 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 all Americans, I can assure you that the government must be and will be prepared to act against them.
I have asked today, I have asked today,
While I was meeting with members of Congress and I have been gathering with them today, I have asked the Congress to extend for one year the Economic Stabilization Act, which gives the President the power it needs to act to stop inflation.
Holding the line against inflation means holding all the line.
Consequently, I am wanting a government committee on interest and dividends to apply the arts to both these areas.
Dr. Robert Perkins, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
The nation needs interest rates as low as they can be to meet the credit requirements of American banks on agricultural terms, to stimulate non-inflationary economic expansion.
I am confident this should be accomplished on a voluntary basis.
To save Cardinality, I will ask the Congress to stand by the goals of her interest rates today.
Let me turn now to the Southern Province.
Many of my good friends have advised me that the only politically popular position in the state is to be against the province.
But let us recognize that in a civil, democratic, and economic life, all Americans will benefit from our province.
More profits fuel the expansion and generates more jobs.
More profits means more investment.
We'll make our goods more competitive.
More profits means there'll be more tax revenues to pay for the programs that help people in need.
That's why higher profits in the American economy would be good for every person in America.
Windfall profits, however, are quite another matter.
When wages and other costs are held down, even though prices are also held down, circumstances could arise in some cases that might generate exorbitant profits.
In the few cases where this happens, rather than tap such properties, Price Commission's policy will be that business should pass along a fair share of its cost savings to the consumer by cutting prices.
We have lived too long in this country with an inflation psychology.
Everybody just assumed the only direction for prices, the only way, direction for prices is to go up.
The only direction for prices to go is up.
The time has come for some price reductions, I know.
Let's see some prices go down.
Not only in the public interest, but it makes good competitive business sense.
Summing up these actions to stop the rise of $1.2 billion, this is what we will do and what we will not do.
We will permit some adjustments in prices and wages for our parents' finances, 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, but we will not hesitate to take action against any part of the economy that fails to comply.
We will continue price and wage restraints until inflationary pressures are brought under control, but we will not make controls a permanent feature of American life.
When they are no longer needed, you 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 entrance escape the fair enforcement of the law.
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.
Recognize him.
Let us recognize his profound truth.
What is best for all of us is best for each one of us.
We cannot afford a business if we go out of food anywhere, because fighting and baiting is everyone's business.
Let us look for a moment on the future.
1972 will be a very good year for the American economy.
Let me broaden that as much.
Coming here could 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, the first time in 15 years, that we've achieved our goal of prosperity and 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 the broad working people and the low value of the dollar player.
It can be the year in which the American competitive spirit is reborn and we open up new markets for our goods abroad and new careers for our women and our homes.
It can be a year in which we and our international trading partners build upon the most significant initiative in 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.
It can be a year in which historic events will take place on the international scene, events that could affect the peace of the world in the next generation and even in the next century.
We often hear people say, these are troubled times.
I say these are great, exciting times.
We are at the threshold of a great new era, an era of change and challenge and change.
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 our opportunity, to join in a great common act, to stop inflation, and to create a new prosperity for the world.