Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 13 › Conversation 013-108

Nixon phone call with Long on Tax policy and Domestic labor

Wednesday, November 3, 1971 · 4:34 PM–4:40 PM ET · White House Telephone · 6 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Long, Russell B.Conversation013-108 on Tape 13 (tape position 03:46:05–03:52:14)StartWednesday, November 3, 1971 at 4:34 PMEndWednesday, November 3, 1971 at 4:40 PMRecording deviceWhite House TelephoneSourceNixon Library record for 013-108 ↗ · National Archives Catalog, NAID 417190431 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon called Senator Russell B. Long primarily to extend birthday greetings and encourage him to take the evening off from his legislative work. During the conversation, Long pivoted to a proposal he was advancing in committee regarding tax deductions for domestic help, which he argued would incentivize higher wages for low-income workers and potentially reduce welfare rolls. Nixon expressed interest in the potential economic and political benefits of the plan, requesting that the details be reviewed further.

Audio

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NARA Description

On November 3, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and Russell B. Long talked on the telephone from 4:34 pm to 4:40 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 013-108 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 013-108

Date: November 3, 1971
Time: 4:34 pm - 4:40 pm
Location: White House Telephone

The President talked with Russell B. Long.

[See Conversation No. 612-4A]

     Long's birthday

     Long's schedule
          -Long's wife
          -Pending legislation

     Possible tax deduction for domestic help
          -Creation of jobs
          -Level of pay
          -Provisions
          -Treasury Department's view
                -Wallace F. Bennett
          -Provisions
          -Labor's possible view
          -President's conversation with Bennett
          -John B. Connally
          -Long's conversation with Mrs. Long
          -Cost

     Long's birthday
          -Winston S. Churchill's statement on aging

Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Names and numbers are often wrong; speakers are not identified. Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

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Senator Long, sir.
Hello.
Yes, Mr. President, how are you?
Russell, I'm not calling you for a thing except as I just noted one of my spies, you're having a birthday.
So I want you to know that you can't have a birthday without having your friend at the White House calling you.
Well, thanks so much.
I very much appreciate it.
I know you had a lot of work down there and everything, but take off tonight and tell your wife I ordered you out of the house, okay?
Well, don't order me to do anything for about another half hour.
I'm still trying to move this bill along.
Oh, you're in that.
Oh, no, no, stay there.
Stay there.
Incidentally, for your benefit, let me just tell you something.
The little difference of opinion that we've got here that might not have come to your attention.
Right.
I think on this bill...
And right now we're about equal divided.
I think I've got about one more vote than there is opposed to.
But I think that on this bill it would be good for you if we would say that people can deduct the expense of hiring domestic help provided that they pay the domestic help at least 30 percent more than they were paying them to begin with if they had somebody.
you've got a million and a half people in those low-paying jobs, and then you've got another three and a half billion families who'd like to get somebody but can't get them.
And this would let them pay a lot more to get the help.
Frankly, I think that you might find as many jobs this way.
Admittedly, they're low-paying jobs, but still a job is better than welfare.
And I think you might be able to get more people...
They're backside, and it's some kind of a job this way, even with some of these other things that we hope to get them a good job.
And it might not have been, don't know if I know what I'm discussing with you, apparently they've got the board and the Treasury figured they can't support it, notwithstanding which I think I've got a moment about a slum majority in the committee for it.
Now, if I can't do that, I'm going to try to,
make it deductible as many cases as I can where the committee will go with me, such as cases where both the husband and wife are working or where the woman's working, has a disabled husband at home and things like that.
But I think that there's a potential of putting just a lot more people to work, and plus that,
I cried out on my maid, she comes in twice.
She wants to go out and campaign for it when she sees a prospect of getting a big increase in her pay.
I wanted to mention that to you and not ask you to commit yourself, but frankly I feel like that had a potential for getting a lot more people into some kind of a job and also raising the pay of those that have these low-paying jobs.
You say at the present time they...
the treasury is uh they've testified against it have they opposed to it and frankly that's what's keeping wise bennett from voting for he was right now he's just withholding his vote but
My thought about this, the way I've got this thing worked out would be that if you were in a 25% tax bracket or better, you've got to pay at least 30% more, so I'd have to pay my maid.
Or let's say if you're in a bracket above 40%, you've got to pay 40% more.
Well, if you take my maid, she's in prospect of getting a 40% increase in her pay, man.
She's out trying to find somebody she can campaign with for it.
uh it had a great potential i think and that uh all these low paid you got all these people a million and a half of them in low paying jobs that would be just happy as they could be about getting a nice big increase in their pay uh for this picture now i guess by the time we're through organized labor is going to give me hell about it saying oh my god you're trying to give a rich man a tax deduction but if i'm conditioned that he's got a
uh raise the pay of this poor devil who's got the job i'm not worried about organized labor raising hell about that i think that's right that had a potential to help
Anyway, that's something I've been working on up here.
Yeah, Wally told me something about it.
I mean, he didn't go into it.
I had him down.
Remember, you suggested we do that.
Right.
Had a nice talk with him.
Well, Connolly's not here to discuss it.
No, he isn't.
I know.
And I figured that, frankly, I've been telling my wife this whole thing, that you get reelected because...
you'd have a whole bunch of people get the big increase now.
What's the cost of it, Russell?
Well, the offhand cost would be about $600 million, but you've got these enormous deductions, these tremendous offsets against it that are not in that calculation.
But you look at all the people you take off welfare.
You've got a world of people who are in the welfare category who you take off welfare by...
by attracting them to take a job they wouldn't take before.
And you've got a lot of cases where a wife would go to work, take a job as a schoolteacher or something, and pay more taxes because she is able to deduct the expense of hiring somebody to come in and look after the house while she's working.
So my guess is the overall cost wouldn't be great.
If you crank in the offsets, maybe about $400 million.
and uh and the number of people's benefit would be tremendous frankly now some fellows tell me well i'll be a key to trying to help the rich i'm not worried about that on this point i know that yeah i know i know let me uh i uh i'll take a look i'm not familiar with the the numbers and everything but uh
I appreciate your filling me in on it, and let me take a look at it, will you?
Thanks for your call, Mr. President.
Anyway, don't start counting those damn birthdays now.
You're too young a fellow.
I remember when I was 53, I was really a bounder.
You recall what Churchill Spalter said about that, don't you?
He said something effective about it.
that I dread the thought of growing old until I think of the alternative.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
Thank you for your comments, President.
Bye.

Also recorded on November 3, 1971

  • 013-107 4:28 PM · 9 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 4:28 pm and 4:34 pm.
  • 612-001 4:28 PM · 3 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 4:28 pm and 4:34 pm.
  • 612-002 4:28 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Alexander P. Butterfield met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 4:28 pm and 4:34 pm.
  • 612-003 4:28 PM · 9 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 4:28 pm and 4:34 pm.
  • 612-004 4:34 PM · 56 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Russell B. Long met in the Oval Office of the White House from 4:34 pm to 5:31 pm.
  • 013-109 4:40 PM · 6 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 4:40 pm and 4:42 pm.
  • 013-110 4:42 PM · 21 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Robert H. Finch talked on the telephone from 4:42 pm to 4:43 pm.
  • 013-111 4:43 PM · 9 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 4:43 pm and 4:46 pm.

All 64 conversations from November 3, 1971 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 013-108, November 3, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives (NAID 417190431). Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/013-108 (accessed November 2, 2026).