As Treasury Secretary
In August, he was asked to continue to serve at Treasury by President Gerald R. Ford, Jr., who shortly afterward appointed him Chairman of the Economic Policy Board and chief spokesman for the administration on economic issues.
On April 8, 1975, President Ford also named him Chairman of the newly created East-West Foreign Trade Board, established under the authority of the Trade Act of 1974.
At the time of his nomination as Treasury Secretary, Simon was serving as Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, a post he had held from January 22, 1973. As Deputy Secretary, he supervised the Administration's program to restructure and improve U.S. financial institutions. He also served as the first Administrator of the Federal Energy Office.
From December 4, 1973, Simon simultaneously launched and administered the Federal Energy Administration at the height of the oil embargo. As such he became known as the high-profile "Energy Czar", and represented a revitalization of the "czar" term in U.S. politics. He also chaired the President's Oil Policy Committee and was instrumental in revising the mandatory oil import program in April 1973. Simon was a member of the President's Energy Resources Council and continued to have major responsibility for coordinating both domestic and international energy policy.
In 1977, Simon received the Alexander Hamilton Award, the Treasury Department's highest honor. In 1976, while serving as Secretary of the Treasury, President Anwar Sadat of Egypt presented Simon with the Collar of the Republic/Order of the Nile. Simon's term as Secretary of the Treasury ended on January 20, 1977.
As Treasury Secretary, Simon supported free markets and denounced government policies that either subsidize or penalize businesses. In Simon's own words:
"Throughout the last century the attachment of businessmen to free enterprise has weakened dramatically as they discovered they could demand--and receive--short-range advantages from the state. . . . I watched with incredulity as businessmen ran to the government in every crisis, whining for handouts or protection from the very competition that has made this system so productive."
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