n053  1532  09 Mar 80
 
BC-SPEECH-KENNEDY (UNDATED) 3takes
c. 1980 N.Y. Times News Service
    Candidates for the presidential nomination in both major parties
make hundreds of speeches in their campaigns, speeches that vary in
content depending on where they are given and the audience being
addressed.
    But every candidate has a body of material, usually presented in
every speech, that varies little from audience to audience. This
material represents the heart of his message to the voters as he
moves around the country.
    Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's basic speech is the sixth in a series of
texts of such ''stock speeches,'' heard by millions of Americans but
rarely published at length, that have been collected by The New York
Times.
    
Too often in this campaign, we have heard easy and expedient
nonsense - on one side, that voting for a particular candidate is
somehow a singular proof of patriotism or on the other side, that we
can have higher military spending, lower income taxes, a lower
federal deficit, no inflation and no cutbacks in social programs -
all at the same time.
    Such appeals to popular frustration confuse rhetoric with reality;
they treat implausible slogans as possible solutions. But none of
this will relieve any of our problems; much of it will only deepen
them.
    The campaign now moves into a new setting, the large states from
Illinois to New York, an arena truly representative of the nation,
where the contest will be truly decided.
    And here the campaign takes on a new seriousness - for here the
issues of inflation and energy painfully affect tens of millions of
Americans. These issues need answers, not nostrums. And a politics
worthy of winning must offer more than reassurance without progress -
or opposition without alternatives.
    It is time to heed Adlai Stevenson's advice two decades ago: Once
again, ''Let's talk sense to the American people.''
    In Illinois and New York, people already have a sharp sense of our
problems that cuts far deeper than words. For the families of
Chicago, an 18 percent rate of inflation is more than a statistic
that can be turned into a political issue. For them, inflation is a
relentless theft from their earnings; it turns hopes into
disappointments; it converts modest standards of life into marginal
standards of survival.
    For the elderly, inflation means cruel choices between enough heat
for their apartments and enough food on their tables. For many of
them, decent health care is now beyond reach; senior citizens are now
paying more for health services out of their own pockets than they
did before the passage of Medicare in 1965.
    For workers, inflation means wages declining in purchasing power
even while they are rising in dollar amount. Last year, real wages
fell by 2.5 percent. Ten years ago, half of all Americans could
realize the dream of owning a home. This year, only 25 percent of our
people have the resources to buy a modest house at the average price.
    For middle-class families, inflation means increased costs for
college and a lesser chance to learn and to earn at a level equal to
your talents and your skills. Today costs at a public university
exceed $4,000 a year.
    And for the poorest among us, inflation means an impoverishment of
the already bleak bareness of their lives. Now, for the poorest 10
percent of our citizens, the costs of the most basic necessities of
food, shelter, warmth and health total 120 percent of their income -
and so they are cold or sick, or ill-clad, ill-housed, and
ill-nourished.
    Our highest officials now admit that we confront an economic crisis.
Yet they tell us that their economic policies are ''fine.'' Perhaps
they think they can talk us out of inflation. Soon they may even
inform us that price stability is just around the corner.
    In fact, their anti-inflation guidelines have the same credibility
with major corporations that their foreign policy has with the Soviet
Union. Business has been easily persuaded to be patriotic by holding
wages down, while raising prices twice as fast and reaping record
profits. This policy is ''fine'' only for the few; it is an economic
catastrophe for the vast majority of Americans.
    This election is their chance to choose. It is their best
opportunity to deal with the worsening conditions of their lives.
They must not be left with a choice in 1980 between trivialities and
banalities, between the bad and something worse, between the
pseudo-Republican policies of a Democratic administration and the
harsher ideology of the leading Republican candidates.
    (MORE)
    
ny-0309 1829est
***************

n055  1552  09 Mar 80
 
BC-SPEECH-KENNEDY 2dadd
NYT UNDATED: for them.
    I am committed to wage and price controls to halt inflation now.
They are a last resort; but more and more economists agree that we
are in an epidemic of inflation for which there is no other cure. A
temporary period of controls can permit us to take the permanent
steps which I have proposed to deal with the causes of inflation.
They include incentives for productivity and investment, increases in
competition, and improvements in America's position in the markets of
the world.
    These specific measures will take time to take hold. But there is
nothing that will restrain inflation in the meantime other than
across-the-board controls.
    Let those who assail controls answer what their alternative is, how
long it will require, and who will be helped or hurt.
    I am also committed to specific policies to reduce the price of
energy and our dependence on foreign oil. We need a temporary period
of gasoline rationing. It is tempting to attack this - to assume that
Americans are unwilling to sacrifice and ready to believe that the
energy crisis can be met without disturbing anyone's ease.
    I am convinced that people are more sensible than this. I am
convinced that they would rather have rationing by supply than the
current policy of rationing by ever-rising prices. And I am also
convinced that the American people would rather sacrifice a little
gasoline than spill American blood to defend OPEC pipelines in the
Middle East.
    During the period of gasoline rationing, I would also implement a
plan of energy conservation to insulate our homes and commercial
buildings and to modernize our industry. Canada saves 30 percent of
the energy used in homes; Japan uses 40 percent less energy than we
do to produce a ton of steel. And so can we.
    By making more efficient use of energy, by pursuing a realistic
synfuels program by converting utilities to clean coal, and by
developing solar power and similar alternatives, we can eliminate
nearly 7 million of the 8 million barrels of oil a day that we
currently import.
    In my energy plan, there is no provision for a nuclear future that
threatens the future itself. In the next two decades, nuclear energy
should be phased out as alternative energy is phased in.
    Nor does my energy plan tolerate the subversion of the environment.
We do not have to degrade our environmental future in order to secure
our energy future. We must not turn on our light bulbs with energy
technologies that pollute our land, pour acid rain into our waters,
and poison our lungs with cancer.
    There are other solutions. We must speak for them, vote for them,
and prevail with them in the 1980s.
    Finally, I am committed to special justice. I am not prepared to
abandon causes that are in the right, but out of political style. We
must reform taxes to assure fairness for middle Americans. We must
bring full opportunity, in life as well as in law, to the minority
who are not white and the millions who are in poverty. We must ratify
the Equal Rights Amendment, so that the majority who are women will
be full citizens in a freer society. And we must insure decent health
care for every American family, and free our people from the fear of
financial ruin due to illness.
    We often hear talk of vision in the presidency. That vision is not a
matter of rhetoric, or a set of insubstantial sentiments. At the
heart of national vision are deeds and advances that people can see
in their own lives. Americans knew that Franklin Roosevelt had
vision, because they had jobs to work at and food to eat.
    A vision for the 1980s can be stated and debated in this campaign.
But when the election is over, the vision, to have meaning, must be
realized on Division Street in Chicago and on the farms outside
Urbana. People must see the purpose and the impact of specific
actions. Government must be made to work; inflation must be made to
stop; energy must be made secure; and justice must be done.
    For this, I entered the 1980 campaign.
    For this, I continue in it.
    And for this, I am determined to win it.
    
ny-0309 1849est
***************