Ford Broadcasts, 1965-1966: 12237637

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

Interest rates on installment borrowing for cars and other consumer goods also are going up.

This could hurt car sales, could lead to unemployment in the auto plants. This country is in deep economic trouble. The unsound economic policies of the Democrats are actually planting the seeds of a recession. How did we get this way?

High interest rates didn't just happen.

When inflation began its insidious attack upon the American economy last year, President Johnson refused to act. He refused to cut back on federal spending and thus take the excess air out of the economic bubble.

The bubble began swelling more and more. Seeing the vacuum of leadership in the White House, the Federal Reserve Board triggered a rise in interest rates in a move to prevent runaway inflation.

Interest rates went up, but the economy didn't level off. Prices continued going up, up, up. --(PAN TO PRICE SKYROCKET)-- The Johnson Administration kept spending, spending, spending. The cost of living went into orbit. Democrats in Congress kept voting more money for the Administration to spend and spend and spend.

Along with a war, Americans got a triple dose of inflation--high interest rates, high prices, and a record high level of unnecessary federal spending.

It's the Johnson Administration and the free-spending Democrats in Congress who are primarily to blame for high interest rates. It's not the Federal Reserve Board. The Board was forced to set because the President wouldn't.

When the economy became overheated, Mr. Johnson and the Democrats went right on spending funds that should have been saved.

GERALD R. FORD LIBRARY