<--PREV Doc #641  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  Second Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #643 Document #642; April 8, 1958 To Ward Murphey Canaday Series: EM, WHCF, Official File 150-A ; Category: Personal The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XIX - The Presidency: Keeping the Peace Part IV: Recession and Reform; February 1958 to May 1958 Chapter 9: "The problems inherent in this job"   Dear Ward: Needless to say, I have discussed your note very seriously with a number of my most trusted associates. I find no specific disagreement with your basic idea that sales would be improved by a temporary moratorium on the excise tax on automobiles.1 But I do find a very positive conviction that we should not, at this time, touch our tax structure. To do so will open flood gates in the Congress that will never be closed. Moreover, I do not know by what process we could insure a moratorium on wage increases during the period that the tax moratorium would be in effect. I assure you that my associates and I are watching these matters every day. Of course it is my prayer and hope that there will soon be distinct signs of real recovery. If business can again start on the road to real increasing prosperity, the government’s fiscal problems will be less severe.2 With warm regard, Sincerely 1 Canaday, president of the Overland Corporation, had first broached the idea of removing automobile excise taxes in a meeting with Eisenhower on April 2 (see Ann Whitman memorandum, Apr. 2, 1958, AWF/AWD). In an April 4 letter (same file as document) he detailed "the important reasons which support my suggestion." He argued that the "immediate effect" of the tax cut would be "to change the trend of unemployment and bring encouraging headlines into the newspapers. This will break the trend of discouragement and fear among buyers of all classes of commodities and turn up the curve of earnings which are essential to create income taxes." On the recession see nos. 598 and 615. 2 Canaday would respond on April 10 (same file as document). Asking the President to forgive his "persistence," he suggested a temporary increase in depreciation allowances for machines purchased by manufacturers from May through December 1958. Canaday would also urge that the Administration exert more pressure to ensure "the reduction of interest rates to the consumer." Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. Personal To Ward Murphey Canaday, 8 April 1958. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 642. World Wide Web facsimile by The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission of the print edition; Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/second-term/documents/642.cfm <--PREV Doc #641  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  Second Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #643

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