Balanced Growth and Economic Planning Act of 1975
The Humphrey-Javits bill—the “Balanced Growth and Economic Planning Act of 1975” - never passed Congress. The bill called for the creation of an Economic Planning Board to assess the country’s fiscal needs and establish an outline of economic goals to submit to the President. Thereafter, the bill required the President to transmit a long-term balanced economic growth plan. Ultimately, the bill’s demand for an organizational body to advise the president became incorporated into the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1978, which also included a provision establishing full employment as the nation’s economic goal. However, corporate lobbying and the pressures of stagflation in the late 1970s led to considerable watering down of the Humphrey-Hawkins bill; the result was a law that made stern demands (unemployment had to be no more than 3% by 1983), but featured no real enforcement mechanism.
Cry Wolf Quotes
What appears to be simple government planning, to achieve what seem to be worthwhile goals, will absolutely degenerate into total planning. It will encompass production numbers, product design, and ultimately product ownership. And whether you want to call the enemy government planning, or government establishment of goals, there is only one name for it. It is Socialism. If that’s what you want, you have no problem. Just do nothing. And the liberals will elect people to Congress who will give it to you.
The danger is from those who believe that government should be the source of all economic hope for the individual. The danger is from those who believe that government planning is a better device than the free marketplace for distribution of goods and distribution of the nation’s wealth.
I assure you, Senator Javits and others are dead serious in this frontal assault against our free enterprise system. Make no mistake about it, we are talking survival.
This bill could affect the business of every executive in this room. It could affect the entire national economy and the private lives of every American citizen.
