ISSUES: THE POCKETBOOK ELECTION

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"There is a clear choice between Jimmy Carter and President Ford. The choice is: Do you want the Federal Government to spend more and more of your money and interfere more and more in your daily lives? ... Do you want your taxes raised so you can pay for those hundred-billion-dollar programs of Jimmy Carter?" [Crowd: "No! No!"]

—Gerald Ford on the stump

"Don't blame local officials when your property taxes double if the welfare load on you has been increased under a Republican Administration and when inflation goes up and housing gets scarce ... We had over 800 people who made over $100,000 a year, 240 people who earned over $200,000 a year and paid zero income taxes. When they don't pay their taxes, do you know who pays their taxes for them?" [Crowd: "We do."]

—Jimmy Carter on the campaign trail

If they could bottle and market their bombast and bluster about the U.S. economy, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford would become millionaires many times over. To hear Carter on the stump, the nation is heading right back to 1932, with serpentine lines of unemployed, shuttered factories and silent cash registers. After the Administration released some third-quarter statistics last week, Carter put out a statement that said they point to "a continuation of high unemployment, huge budget deficits and dim prospects for an improvement in the standard of living for the average worker."

To hear Jerry Ford, the economy is moving onward and upward, recovering nicely (thanks to excellent Republican prescriptions) from deep recession and dire inflation, shaking off the effects of a little setback in the past few months. Says Ford: "We have had a pause. We are now coming out of the dip, and I believe that all, or practically all economists recognize that the economy is continuing to improve and will get better in this quarter and in 1977."

Is the economy as bad as Carter says? Is it as good as Ford contends? The answers the voters give to those questions may well swing the election, for next to the character and personalities of the candidates themselves, the mercurial, often mystifying economy has become the main issue of Campaign '76. Moreover, voters this year have a genuine choice between the candidates' differing economic philosophies.

In describing the present situation, Gerald Ford is more accurate than Carter, and he is correct that most economists, including Democrats, believe the recovery has run into only a temporary slowdown. Nevertheless, last week's figures were troubling. The real rate of growth in the gross national product slowed further in the third quarter, to 4%, which is good in normal times but sluggish for a recovery—and not enough to reduce unemployment. Some of the sting was removed by the news that inflation in the entire economy eased from 5.2% in the second quarter to 4.4% in the third, and housing starts in September jumped 18%, to an annual rate of 1,814,000. Still, Ford was looking ahead with some apprehension to the report of the economy's index of leading indicators; it is due out this Friday, four days before the election.