If the Shoe Fits

"I see no figures that bring this thing to a critical point," said the President of the U.S. when he was asked at his news conference last week whether he would press for an immediate tax cut. As Ike and questioners well knew, the March unemployment figures (see BUSINESS) showed a 25,000 rise in the jobless to a 17-year high of 5,198,000. At the same time, the number of people working rose by 323,000 to 62,311,000, which was only 2.4% below March 1957's 63,865,000 all-time high for the month.

Then if Ike was not for a tax cut to cure the recession, did he have some advice to offer the people on how they could make it recede?

The President's reply: "Buy."

"Buy what?" inquired a reporter.

"Anything," said the President, adding after another question, "I don't say you should buy carelessly. I said to you the other day, let's be selective in our buying. Look here, once America just buys the things it wants, our people, our manufacturers, will be busy making those things.

"I personally think our people are just a little bit disenchanted by a few items that have been chucked down their throats, and they are getting tired of them; and I think it would be a very good thing when the manufacturers wake up--and I am not going to name names--and begin to give the things we want instead of the things they think we want. Now that is what I think."

At week's end the comment on buyer disenchantment was nowhere causing greater anguish than in Detroit. Motor moguls assumed that the President was talking at them, thereby giving further currency to charges that new cars are overstyled, oversized and overpriced. With sales running 1.2 million behind 1957 and inventories continuing to pile up, the President's comments, said one Detroit automaker, were "grossly unfair."

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