US Presidency
1967

Last September, the machinery producers were operating close to 100 percent of capacity. Now their operations have moved down to a much healthier and much more efficient rate. The acute shortage of skilled machinists has now greatly moderated. Imports of capital equipment which had previously been climbing on an average of 14 percent a quarter, have already leveled off. So this evidence of moderation in our economy has now been confirmed by the survey of investment plans for 1967 conducted by the Department of Commerce and the Securities and Exchange Commission, which was released to you yesterday and published this morning. A moderate increase of 3.9 percent in capital outlay is planned for 1967, according to these estimates. That is a very sharp contrast to the increases of 16 percent and 17 percent in the past 2 years. So the actions that we took last fall, with the cooperation of the Congress, have helped to do what we thought very much needed to be done. The imbalance in our economy that we were aiming at has now been righted.