Carter and Ford: the issues

Press, 6 September 1976, Page 16

Carter and Ford: the issues

By

JOHN WILSON,

of the staff of

“The Press”

Two months from now Americans will elect their President for the next four years. Many feel that in American presidential elections what a candidate says about the issues is less important than the image he projects. Others feel that the issues raised are oversimplified as each candidate tries to denigrate the policies of the other. But some of the Americans who bother to vote (it may be less than half of those eligible this year) decide between the candidates on the basis of the stands the candidates have taken on various issues. This year’s two main candidates — and their parties — have already taken different stands on a number of issues.

The Republican Party platform includes policies decidedly more conservative than those Mr Ford has endorsed. and the Democratic platform is more progressive on certain issues than is Mr Carter. Even so, it is already clear that between Mr Ford and Mr Carter the American voters have a distinct choice between a moderate conservative and a more progressive liberal.

Mr Ford and Mr Carter disagree strongly about what they will do to reduce unemployment and inflation and, as an off-shoot of this, how large a Federal budget deficit they will tolerate. The Democrats and Mr Carter are promising to bring unemployment down much faster, and to a much lower level, than the Republicans and Mr Ford. They maintain that careful efforts to reduce unemployment will not boost the rate of inflation. Mr Carter has emphasised controlled fiscal and monetary expansion to speed the recovery of business while the Democrats in Congress have inclined towards spending to create public sector jobs. In July Congress overrode Mr Ford’s veto of a limited public works jobs bill. Mr Ford has also opposed the HumphreyHawkins full employment bill which Mr Carter has supported. Mr Ford was in a better position to turn the Democratic attack on the issue of jobs until the unemploy-

ment figures for June and July were released. Instead of continuing to decline slowly, unemployment rose slightly in those two months. It will be less easy for Mr Ford to claim that he has been responsible for a steady recovery. But Mr Ford can still depict the Democrats and Mr Carter, because of their insistence that jobs be found for the unemployed, as free spenders who lack fiscal responsibility. This will tie in with the attack the Republicans are expected to make on the Democrats as the party of ‘‘big government.” Mr Ford is expected to blame the growth of a large, powerful, insensitive and expensive bureaucracy in Washington on the Democratically controlled Congress, and to suggest that if Mr Carter is installed in the White House there will be no check on the further growth of this bureaucracy. Mr Carter is expected to counter these charges by emphasising his promises to provide the ordinary citizen with easier access to government agencies (the “sunshine laws”) and to place all agencies on “zero-based” budgets. Each agency will have to

justify all its programmes from scratch and not submit only additional programmes to the scrutiny of the President’s budget advisers. Mr Carter has been firm that while he will not necessarily make the Federal Government smaller or less active he will make it more efficient and effective. Mr Ford runs the risk, if he makes too much of the issue of “big government” of reminding people that he is part of the Washington establishment, and that Washington is the home not only of a large expensive bureaucracy, but also of corrupt politicians. The Democrats, if not Mr Carter himself, will not be slow to tie the albatross of being Mr Nixon’s handpicked successor and the man who pardoned the exPresident more firmly than ever around Mr Ford’s neck. How the Government should control inflation and keep people in work are familiar issues in New Zealand. So are others on which Mr Carter and Mr Ford have opposing stands. Although Mr Carter feels personally that abortion is wrong, he favours abiding by recent Supreme Court rulings that allow some abortions. Mr Ford has publicly disagreed with the Court’s prescriptions and

favours amending the Constitution to allow the state to set their own rules — which is still short of the "right to life” amendment endorsed in the Republican platform. Although his own background is rural, Mr Carter has picked up the arguments made by big-city Democrats and begun to criticise the cuts in urban programmes made by the last two Republican Presidents. He has endorsed most of the planks in the Democratic platform which call for Federal aid for the cities. On crime, a major urban problem, the differences between the two candidates are clear. Mr Carter is opposed to reinstating the death penalty and to introducing stiff mandatory sentences for certain crimes. He favours concentration on the social factors responsible for much crime, like joblessness. Mr Ford has endorsed both mandatory sentences and the death penalty from a conviction that certainty of punishment is the best way to deter criminals. One issue which has no equivalent in New Zealand, but will be important in the election, is court-ordered busing of school children to achieve racial integration of America’s schools. Mr Ford has emphatically condemned

busing and the Republicans, as a party, have called for a constitutional amendment to ban it. Mr Carter has been cautious on the issue, but has not tuled out the use of busing to end racial segregation in schools as a last resort Mr Carter is proposing reform of the welfare system and sweeping tax reforms to end existing abuses. The changes in the tax system proposed by the Republicans and Mr Ford will enlarge existing loop-holes and create new ones. Mr Carter is in favour of a comprehensive and mandatory national health insurance scheme financed by taxation. Mr Ford would restrict any Federal programme to insurance against serious illness alone. The Republican platform envisages even insurance of this sort being provided through private health insurance plans. Had Mr Reagan won the nomination of the Republican party, foreign policy issues would probably have been more prominent in the campaign than thev are now likely to be. Mr Carter may now play down foreign policy issues for fear that Presidential initiatives could steal his thunder. In the crucial areas of detente with the Soviet Union, the new relationshio with

China and relations with Western Europe and Japan, Mr Carter is promising a change in style rather than a change in substance. He has called for an end to concealment and deception and to "long-ranger diplomacy. In negotiations with the Soviet Union, he wants the United States to drive harder bargains and not to settle for general declarations instead of concessions on specific issues. But he has not suggested that efforts to reduce tension between the two Powers should be lessened. Both candidates have supported moves towards “normalising” relations with China, but neither has come up with a convincing solution to the problem of Taiwan. Both candidates have given firm pledges to support Israel, with Mr Carter going further and criticising Dr Kissinger’s putting anv pressure at all on Israel. Mr Carter believes that the best way to peace in the Middle East is for the United States to give Israel complete confidence in its backing. Both candidates are pledged to maintain N.A.T.0., but Mr Carter has made a guarded promise to respect the results of democratic elections in Western European countries. It is when Mr Carter starts talking about a more “moral” foreign policy that he begins to sound very different from Mr Ford. He is promising to take more interest in human rights round the world, and has already taken a strong stand on repression in South Korea; to make greater efforts to channel resources to the poorer countries of the world, particularly by more active support for the World Bank and International Development Association; to scrutinise the sale of American arms abroad more closely. On almost all these foreign policy issues Mr Ford will probably be reduced to defending his (and Dr Kissinger’s) record. If he manages to achieve a satisfactory S.A.L.T. II agreement before November, Mr Ford may be able to take much of the wind out of Mr Carter’s foreign policy saisl. But now that Vietnam is a closed chapter in American foreign policy, the election is more likely to turn on domestic issues.