Remarks at the College of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark, New Jersey

Governor Brendan Byrne, to Senator Pete Williams, to Congressman Pete Rodino, to Mayor Ken Gibson, and to my good friends from New Jersey:

I'd like to talk to you for a few minutes this morning about some of the things that are of great importance to you. The first thing I'd like to talk to you about is the New Jersey State income tax. There are people in this State who don't appreciate the great courage and good judgment of Brendan Byrne in putting into effect, along with your legislature, a State income tax which cuts your own property taxes in New Jersey by hundreds of millions of dollars.

This tax was designed to give you more than $500 million more for better education. This tax was designed to cut property taxes. And your own mayor told me a few minutes ago that not only have property taxes been cut 7 percent in Newark but they will be kept cut next year as well.

This also prevents an increase in sales tax. And as you well know, the income tax is designed to be paid by rich people who can afford it best, rather than the working people and the older people of this country.

As a matter of fact, in New Jersey, 84 percent of all the senior citizens in this State pay zero New Jersey income tax. So this tax has given you a fair system which benefits poor people and working families and puts, for a change, some of the tax burden on the rich people that weren't paying taxes in the future--they will pay it in the future. They haven't been paying it in the past.

Another thing I'd like to mention is this: You've now got a Governor who looks to the future with great confidence in you and in this State.

This afternoon, Mayor Ken Gibson will take 2,000 of your children to see a football game between [Florida] College A&M and Howard University. If it hadn't been for the leadership of the mayor, they wouldn't be going. If it hadn't been for the leadership of the Governor, you would not have had the sport complex for them to play in. So, this is a sign of his looking to the future for your welfare and benefit.

As I look around me, in the distance I see new housing programs. In the last 4 years, New Jersey, in the area in which we are now located, Peter Rodino's district, Ken Gibson's city, has had more new housing come here than in all previous history put together. And we are just getting started together to give you a better place to live.

I'd like to talk to you for a minute about health care. Just behind us is a center to train medical doctors, nurses, physicians' assistants. In this center right here, under the leadership of Dr. Bergen and your mayor, your Governor, and others, there are more black students studying to be medical doctors than in any other integrated medical college in the United States.

And this program has been established and is now in operation without rigid quotas but based on the merit of the students who are studying, behind me, to hold down the disease that's always been so bad, and particularly among poor people.

There has not been another place in our country, so far as I know, where there's been such a dramatic reduction in deaths among the poor families and working families of your region. In the last 10 years alone, because of this kind of leadership, infant deaths have been cut 50 percent; deaths because of cancer have been cut 50 percent; deaths because of tuberculosis have been cut 60 percent. And there's no doubt in my mind that under the leadership of Ken Gibson, of Governor Brendan Byrne, of your congressional delegation working with Governor Byrne, that with the output of this great center behind me, new doctors will have an even greater reduction in the future.

We are now concentrating, also, on preventive health care. I know that Pete Williams, Pete Rodino, your Governor, and others are going to work to help congressional legislation get passed to cut down on the cost of hospital care. We now have a bill in the Congress to do this. If it doesn't pass, we'll have a doubling in the cost of hospital care every 5 years.

So, we must work together to give you better education, fairer tax programs, a good quality place to live, good housing, better health care, prevention of disease, and an opportunity for jobs. The worst single domestic problem that I face--and it's also faced by your Governor and your mayor and the Congress--is unemployment, and particularly in urban areas.

A year ago the unemployment rate in your State was 10.3 percent. It's already been reduced by 2 percent. And with the kind of programs that have gone into effect, we have a good chance in the future to reduce it even further.

This is a State that now gets its fair share of Federal tax moneys. You've paid them, but in the past you've not been getting them back. When Brendan Byrne came into office, New Jersey ranked 49th among all the States in the Nation in getting your share of Federal money to pay for better housing, health care, law enforcement, transportation. Now New Jersey ranks 34th. And I believe it's fair to say that because of the cooperation that does exist between Governor Byrne and your Members of Congress, even when we had a Republican administration, that New Jersey began to cooperate and get programs that benefit you.

You've got a man in the Governor's office of great courage, of sound judgment, and one that's completely honest. And as you see Atlantic City in the future be a revived city, we don't want to see hoodlums come in and take it over. And if there's one man that's strong enough and honest enough to keep out corruption, it's Governor Brendan Byrne.

Well, I think all of you know how important it is for a candidate who takes courageous stands for people who don't have much influence to do so in the face of those like some of the demonstrators in this crowd that want special privileges for the ones that haven't paid their taxes in the future.

Brendan Byrne is a man who will fight for you if you don't have a job. Brendan Byrne is a man who will fight for you if you're a working-class family. Brendan Byrne is a man who will fight for you if you want better health care, better housing, better education.

He's also a man who has fought for you to let the rich pay their fair share of taxes and to let the working people benefit from lower property taxes. And if you want your property taxes to go up in the future, if you want your sales tax to go up in the future, if you want to put a burden on the poor and working-class and retired people, vote against Brendan Byrne.

But if you want fair taxes and better services, support Brendan Byrne in the election, which is what I'm doing and what those behind me are doing.

Thank you very much. I am proud to be back in New Jersey. God bless you all.