“FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD”—New York Daily News headline, October 30, 1975
Talking about Halloween scares!
There have been tabloid headlines more infectious (one personal favorite: in the New York Daily News, after Joey Buttafuoco was arrested for paying for a prostitute: SO JOEY, HOW’S TRICKS?).
Talking about Halloween scares!
There have been tabloid headlines more infectious (one personal favorite: in the New York Daily News, after Joey Buttafuoco was arrested for paying for a prostitute: SO JOEY, HOW’S TRICKS?).
But none were so powerful—or so politically consequential—as the one created by Daily News managing editor William Brink after President Gerald Ford, in a nationally televised speech, rejected the Big Apple’s request for federal aid to stave off imminent bankruptcy.
Eventually, the city managed to keep the wolves from its doors as Governor Hugh Carey cobbled together, with the clock ticking, a package consisting of debt-packaging corporations, strict financial oversight, and concessions by unions (a tale told by Seymour Lachman and my college friend Rob Polner in their new study of Carey, The Man Who Saved New York).
A few weeks later, even Ford helped out, to a limited degree, by signing a package of short-term emergency loans. But the damage had already been done to his standing by the News’ short, brutal headline.
A year later, city and state voters remembered—and made Ford pay at the polls. In retirement, the President would point to the headline as a contributing factor in his narrow loss to Democratic challenger Jimmy Carter in the Electoral College. New York State’s 41 electoral votes would have given him Ford victory. Instead, he left the Oval Office, wondering what might have been.
Eventually, the city managed to keep the wolves from its doors as Governor Hugh Carey cobbled together, with the clock ticking, a package consisting of debt-packaging corporations, strict financial oversight, and concessions by unions (a tale told by Seymour Lachman and my college friend Rob Polner in their new study of Carey, The Man Who Saved New York).
A few weeks later, even Ford helped out, to a limited degree, by signing a package of short-term emergency loans. But the damage had already been done to his standing by the News’ short, brutal headline.
A year later, city and state voters remembered—and made Ford pay at the polls. In retirement, the President would point to the headline as a contributing factor in his narrow loss to Democratic challenger Jimmy Carter in the Electoral College. New York State’s 41 electoral votes would have given him Ford victory. Instead, he left the Oval Office, wondering what might have been.
The question inevitably arises: What would have happened if the city's emergency had occurred today? Well, the state itself, of course, would not, because of its own precarious finances, be able to come to the rescue. But it's also safe to say that the situation in Washington would not have been congenial to a bailout.
As we are learning in this current election, American taxpayers are not happy when politicians squeeze them to pay for other people's irresponsibility, even if there's quite a bit of difference between Wall Street firms who engage in the most reckless form of casino capitalism and municipal governments with the best intentions of creating a better life for more of its citizens.
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