Copyright New York Daily News
Oct. 30, 1975: In perhaps its most iconic front page, The News hit out at President Ford for saying he would veto any bill calling for a federal bailout of New York City and proposing legislation that would make it easier for the city to go into bankruptcy. While Ford never used the words “drop dead,” he acknowledged the sentiment essentially cost him the presidency when Jimmy Carter narrowly carried the state of New York in 1976. He did eventually provide federal loans to the city, which were repaid with interest. From the editorial pages: “President Gerald Ford made it abundantly clear yesterday that the White House wants no part of any constructive effort to help New York City avoid default. Indeed, the President seems to feel that we ought to welcome insolvency as a healthy, purifying atonement for all our past fiscal sins of omission and commission. … This totally negative approach was accompanied by a great deal of solemn sermonizing on the city’s abysmal record for waste, extravagance and financial finagling, the lushness of its welfare-state programs, the exorbitant salaries and pensions it has granted civil servants. This recital of wrongdoing was nothing less than a stab in the back of a great city — an act of cheap politics that plays recklessly on anti-New York sentiment across the nation.”
