Whip Inflation Now

[2] People who supported the mandatory and voluntary measures were encouraged to wear "WIN" buttons,[3] perhaps in hope of evoking in peacetime the kind of solidarity and voluntarism symbolized by the V-campaign during World War II.

Ford had taken office in August 1974 amidst one of the worst economic crises in US history, marked by high unemployment and inflation rising to 12.3% that year following the 1973 oil crisis.

[2] As a Republican, Ford favored the WIN campaign's emphasis on addressing the problem through voluntary actions of citizens, instead of price restrictions imposed centrally by a big government bureaucracy.

[2] The campaign began in earnest with the establishment by the 93rd Congress of the National Commission on Inflation, which Ford closed with an address to the American people, asking them to send him a list of ten inflation-reducing ideas.

Alan Greenspan, as the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors during the Ford administration, went along reluctantly with the "Whip Inflation Now" campaign,[2] but would later recall in his book The Age of Turbulence that he was thinking, "This is unbelievably stupid" when the concept was first presented to the White House.