264. Editorial Note
On March 14, 1980, President Jimmy Carter addressed the nation on the rapid rise in inflation and interest rates during the previous 8 weeks. After outlining what he viewed as the domestic and international causes of soaring inflation, including “the soaring prices for energy throughout the world,” he announced a five-part intensive anti-inflation program, which contained these components: 1) a balanced budget for fiscal year 1981 based on expenditure cuts in personnel, operating, and maintenance throughout the Federal government; 2) restraining the growth of credit by using the Credit Control Act of 1969 to authorize the Federal Reserve to impose new restraints on credit on a limited and carefully targeted basis; 3) requesting voluntary wage and price standards based on the revised pay standards of the Council on Wage and Price Standards and expanding the price and wage moni[Page 834]toring activities of the Council on Wage and Price Stability; 4) asking that Congress finish work on the administration’s energy policy concerning the windfall profits tax, the Energy Security Corporation, and the Energy Mobilization Board, reiterating his goal to cut the nation’s oil imports by 50 percent by 1990, and also exercising Presidential authority to impose a gasoline conservation fee on imported oil amounting to 10 cents a gallon on gasoline; and 5) pressing for long-term structural economic changes that would encourage productivity, savings, and research and development based on specific recommendations from the Presidential commission on an agenda for the 1980s. For text of the President’s remarks, see Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Jimmy Carter, 1980, pages 476–482.
The Department of State sent a telegram to the Embassies in all OECD and OPEC capitals instructing Ambassadors to inform the highest available level of the host governments of Carter’s address, particularly the gasoline conservation fee on imported oil. (Telegram 67332, March 14; National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files, P910096–1659)