The Public: Mixed Returns

To gauge the initial public reaction to Ford's economy and energy program, TIME correspondents talked with consumers throughout the country and sampled local press editorials. A sizing-up, by region:

THE MIDDLE ATLANTIC: The President was given high marks for taking action, lower grades for the action he took. "Call me relieved," said Baltimore Housewife Betty Lee Digges. "I see the plan as a sign that Mr. Ford is preparing to assert some kind of leadership, instead of just letting the country drift as we have been doing so far."

But many people questioned the logic of the program. A homeowner in suburban Wilmington, Del., sarcastically observed: "I think it is a fine plan. I am going to put the refund in the bank and use it to pay the gas tax." The Wilmington Evening Journal criticized the plan as "somewhat circular. The ordinary taxpayer is apt to get a bit dizzy watching that circle revolve."

Consumers are planning to spend their rebates dutifully. "I guess we'll spend it, since that's what the President wants us to do," said Mrs. Naomi Stout, a housewife who lives in Newark, Del. John DeFazio, president of a steelworkers local in Pittsburgh, thinks that most of his fellow union members will use the money to pay off debts "because things haven't stabilized enough to go on a buying spree."

NEW ENGLAND: The President's proposals have perceptibly added to the January chill in a region where 71% of all homes are heated by oil-burning furnaces and 70% of electricity is oil-generated. In a second winter of discontent over soaring oil and gasoline prices, New Englanders are aghast at the proposed $2-per-bbl. tariff on imported oil. "This isn't leadership," said Lawson Ramsdell, a building custodian in Portland, Me. "I don't think Mr. Ford knows where he is going."

Consumers were hardly mollified by the tax rebate. Said Jean Patton, a management consultant for Polaroid Corp.: "It seems the President is just taking out of one pocket and putting it in the other." Judy Elliott, a restaurant owner in Hartford, agreed: "There are 10,000 people around here who have had their heat cut off because they can't pay. What good is a tax cut when they can't heat their homes?"

If consumers find they have some money left over after paying their heating bills, they plan to spend it cautiously. Fuel and heating bills finally compelled Samuel Trepanier to mothball his truck in his backyard in Clarendon, Vt. When the President announced his program, Trepanier figured: "If the rebate comes to more than $300, I'll get my pickup back on the road."

THE MIDWEST: People in the heartland would like to approve of Ford's program because they generally approve of him. But outside such industrial pockets as St. Louis and Detroit, most Midwesterners have so far been less hurt by the recession than other Americans and still regard inflation as public enemy No. 1. Many are baffled by the President's turnaround. The conservative Indianapolis Star commented: "Inflation, the inevitable consequence of federal deficit spending, is the blunt and brutal factor underlying all the problems the nation faces today. And it was precisely in their failure to come specifically to grips with this painful truth that the President's proposals lacked any real effectiveness."

Not that Midwesterners have any objection to spending money if the Federal Government returns it to them. "We haven't got the easiest life trying to make it," says Ethel Neeman of Chancellor, S. Dak. "That's why I say we'll pay some bills." Walter Herbst, who runs a food store with his brother in St. Paul, Minn., plans to use the refund to buy some equipment. "As far as an independent enterprise is concerned," he says, "it's going to give us a little encouragement where we had an awful lot of discouragement in the past year."

But something for nothing is an alien philosophy in this region. Consumers are sure there is a catch somewhere. Gerald Shaffer, a tire dealer in Akron, thinks that people will spend much less than the President assumes. "The trouble is that we have lost so much confidence in Government that everybody who does have a buck is going to put it into savings."

THE WEST: No sooner was the tax rebate announced than many people had spent it--mentally at least. There was talk of repairing a crack in the swimming pool, putting a new roof on the house, making a down payment for an automobile. There were always back bills to be paid. Said Beverly Hills Secretary Karen Lowell: "My first reaction was: 'Oh, great, all that money! What shall we do with it?' Then I thought, we'll have more money to pay our bills. That's what we'll do with it."

But the proposal for higher oil taxes overshadowed the good news. Motorists wondered why they were being told to save gas on the one hand and to go out and buy a new car on the other. "The Government giveth, and the Government taketh away," said Dennis McDonnell, a Beverly Hills bank executive. Mrs. Susan Walter of Tempe, Ariz., griped that the estimated refund "won't even begin to help pay for gasoline increases, the rising cost of clothes and other inflation, but it will have to do."

Declared Richard Hoff, a Berkeley elementary-school teacher, "When the corporations and the rich curtail their use of energy, then I'll curtail mine." Others deny that they would be able to save on gas even if they wanted to. "I use my car to get to work and shop," says Joan Newcome, a Los Angeles office supervisor, "and there's no way to reduce my mileage."

THE SOUTH: Never very happy with the Federal Government, Southerners are skeptical .about the latest solution coming from Washington. "It's a double-headed monster," said Houston Real Estate Broker Don Wumsche, referring to the combined oil tax and income tax rebate. Added Interior Designer David Thorpe: "It's like getting an estimate for $600 to fix your car, then having the garage call the next day to say it will cost only $500."

Spending plans are appropriately modest. Chris Morse, a secretary in Atlanta, plans to take a brief trip to a Florida beach. "After going through a year like this," she said, "you need sort of a treat." Pledged Joanne Archer, a Miami housewife: "I'd be conservative. It would be a question of keeping up with the bills." For Cheryl Hobson, an Atlanta housewife, the refund will be easy come, easy go. "It's not enough for a vacation, but it might be enough for dinner at some nice place."

People are not inclined to blame the President for the shortcomings of his program. Said Houston Secretary Marla Nickell: "He seems to be a nice, decent, honest man, and I guess he's trying." Joe Kocurek, a retired Tenneco executive in Houston, perhaps summed up the national attitude toward Ford to date: "He hasn't helped me, and he hasn't hurt me."

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