Remarks at the Signing of the Economic Report for 1966.

Chairman Ackley, Mr. Eckstein, Mr. Okun, members of the very valued staff of the Council of Economic Advisers:

I have come here today to sign the President's Economic Report for 1966. I submit it with both .pride and confidence. For I believe it reflects a productive past and, I think, a promising future. It reflects a strong and a growing and a vibrant America.

This report chronicles achievement that is unprecedented in America's peacetime history--5 years of uninterrupted prosperity that have brought to this Nation record employment, record wages, record buying power, record production, record sales, and record profits.

This achievement was not only the work of the President or the Congress or the Government alone. It was the work of all of the American people, of their industry, their faith, and their cooperation. And so now, today, we turn and look at the future, and I think we can do so with confidence and with determination.

Our gross national product for 1966 is expected to rise by 5 percent in real output, to a total of $722 billion. Our price stability is expected to remain the best of any industrial nation in the world. Our unemployment rate is expected to fall well below 4 percent, to the lowest rate since 1953.

But none of this can or will come about by pure accident. We can sustain and we can enlarge our prosperity, but we can do so only if we are willing to work for it and if we are willing to sacrifice for it.

This year we must sacrifice the luxury of tax reduction. We must hold the expansion of our civilian Great Society programs below what would have been possible without Vietnam. We must all exercise wage and price restraint--in Government, in business, and in labor.

We must work to eliminate the remaining balance of payments deficit. We have made a good start and we are very proud of it, but we must realize that there is much work ahead.

We must retrain our jobless, we must educate our young, we must care for our sick, and we must house our poor. We must protect the public against strike emergencies. We must extend and raise the minimum wage. We must strengthen unemployment insurance.

We must be prepared, if necessary, to move quickly on tax changes. We must improve regulation of our financial institutions. We must protect consumers through fair packaging and labeling and through truth in lending.

Yes, the United States is closer today than any nation in history to man's ancient goal of abundance for all. If we are wise, if we are daring, if we are prudent, we can achieve that goal, I believe, in our lifetime.

This Economic Report charts the course for all of us. I believe that all America is ready to follow. There will be some who disagree. We do have diverse opinions in this country, but I hope and believe that there will not be opposition just for opposition's sake. Just as I do not want or expect every member of my own party to support every administration program or every administration policy, so do I hope and so do I pray that the members of the opposition will not necessarily or automatically criticize or nitpick or point out weaknesses in every single move we make.

We are at a point in world history in our time when this Nation is called upon to exercise leadership, to lead the way, not only in international policies but to lead the way here at home in our domestic policies. And the unity and the coordination and the cooperation of diverse groups of all peoples from all regions is extremely important, and I don't know of any time in our history when this Nation has had better understanding and better cooperation, certainly in questions of economic policy.

Just as the three branches of Government are working closely together and understand the true American philosophy, so are the various elements of our society--Government and business and labor.

And so I not only commend those elements of our society who have made it possible for us to reach this high state of prosperity in this country, but I commend this very exceptional nonpartisan, highly trained staff who have provided the leadership and the thought and the judgment and the plans that have resulted in bringing such good times to all the American people, and at least to improving the lot of men everywhere in the world.