US Presidency
1962

In the same week, the Bank for International Settlement in Basel, Switzerland, a conservative organization representing the central bankers of Europe suggested that the appropriate economic policy in the United States should be the very opposite; that we should follow a flexible budget policy, as in Europe, with deficits when the economy is down and a high monetary policy on interest rates, as in Europe, in order to control inflation and protect goals. Both may be right or wrong. It will depend on many different factors. The point is that this is basically an administrative or executive problem in which political labels or cliches do not give us a solution. A well known business journal this morning, as I journeyed to New Haven, raised the prospects that a further budget deficit would bring inflation and encourage the flow of gold. We have had several budget deficits beginning with a $ 12 1/2 billion deficit in 1958, and it is true that in the fall of 1960 we had a gold dollar loss running at $ 5 billion annually.