Democratic National Convention: Miami Beach, Florida
July 14, 1972
"We
must also make this a time of justice and jobs for all our people. For more
than three and half years we have tolerated stagnation and a rising level of
joblessness, with more than five million of our best workers unemployed at this
very moment. Surely, this is the most false and wasteful economics of all.
Our
deep need is not for idleness but for new housing and hospitals, for facilities
to combat pollution and take us home from work, for better products able to
compete on vigorous world markets.
The
highest single domestic priority of the next administration will be to ensure
that every American able to work has a job.
That
job guarantee will and must depend on a reinvigorated private economy, freed at
last from the uncertainties and burdens of war, but it is our firm commitment
that whatever employment the private sector does not provide, the Federal
government will either stimulate or provide itself.
Whatever
it takes, this country is going back to work. America cannot exist with most of
our people working and paying taxes to support too many others mired in a
demeaning and hopeless welfare mess.
Therefore,
we intend to begin by putting millions back to work and after that is done, we
will assure to those unable to work an income fully adequate to a decent life.
Now
beyond this, a program to put America back to work demands that work be
properly rewarded. That means the end of a system of economic controls in
which labor is depressed, but prices and corporate profit run sky-high.
It
means a system of national health insurance so that a worker can afford decent
health care for himself and his family...
And
above all, above all, honest work must be rewarded by a fair and just tax
system.
The
tax system today does not reward hard work: it’s penalizes it. Inherited or
invested wealth frequently multiplies itself while paying no taxes at all. But
wages on the assembly line or in farming the land, these hard – earned dollars
are taxed to the very last penny...
They
tell us that we should not discuss tax reform and the election year. They would
prefer to keep all discussion of the tax laws in closed rooms where the
administration, its powerful friends, and their paid lobbyists, can turn every
effort at reform into a new loophole for the rich and powerful.
But
an election year is the people’s year to speak, and this year, the people are
going to ensure that the tax system is changed so that work is rewarded and so
that those who derive the highest benefits will pay their fair share rather
than slipping through the loopholes at the expense of the rest of us.
So
let us stand for justice and jobs and against special privilege."
(George McGovern lost the 1972 presidential election to Richard Nixon by a vote of 61% to 37%. McGovern carried only one state (Massachusetts) plus the District of Columbia for 17 electoral votes. Nixon received 520 electoral votes. George McGovern--decorated WWII fighter pilot, Ph.D professor of history, US Congressman, US Senator, & humanitarian--died today. He was 90 years old.)
