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1936 › Alf Landon (Republican) › Balancing the federal budget
Balance the budget by cutting expenditures, not by raising taxes
pledge_forwardspecific_pledgecandidate_directevidence A Federal Budget & Spending similar solutions · similar reasoning
Solution
Stop 'the folly of uncontrolled spending'; balance the budget 'drastically and immediately' by cutting out foolish experiments (a billion dollars 'any time it wanted to') while protecting relief allotments.
Rationale
'Mounting debts and increasing taxes constitute a threat' to security; 'for every single dollar spent we will pay back two dollars!'
Statements (4)
Stop the folly of uncontrolled spending. Balance the budget--not by increasing taxes but by cutting expenditures, drastically and immediately.
Our party holds nothing to be of more urgent importance than putting our financial house in order. For the good of all of us, we must re-establish responsibility in the handling of Government finances. We must recognize that a government does not have an unlimited supply of money to spend.
I pledge myself to put an end to extravagance and waste. I pledge myself to stop the policy that glori fies spending. I pledge myself to balance the budget.
We can do this within the limits of a balanced budget. And don't forget I am going to balance the budget.
Follow-through
not_applicable
Landon was never in office. The winner's 1937 economy drive briefly approached balance before the recession; the budget was not balanced in the term.
Reception (1)
The 1936 result was read by historians as a referendum endorsing the New Deal's activist state over Landon's economy-and-Constitution appeal.
1936 FDR had lost most of the backing he once held in the business community because of his support for the Wagner Act and the Social Security Act.
Other positions on this issue
- Balance the federal budget annually within revenues — Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1932 specific_pledge
- A balanced budget as 'the foundation of all public and private financial stability' — Herbert Hoover, 1932 specific_pledge
- A budget balanced immediately and a currency based on and convertible into gold — Frank Knox, 1936 specific_pledge
- Balance the budget within a year or two out of rising national income, without new taxes — Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1936 specific_pledge
1936-landon-balance-budget-by-cutting-spending · created by claude-fable-5-1 · review: unreviewed