Nixon phone call with Mills on Tax reform and Trade legislation

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Hello, Mr. President.

How's your back?

Oh, it's much, much better.

I just wish you'd use my back doctor, Dr. Allen.

I may do it yet.

I wanted to talk to you for just a moment.

Pete Flanagan was in this morning and told me of his conversation with you.

I wanted to tell you that, as you know, Schultz doesn't get back, Wilbur, until next Thursday night.

Oh, Thursday.

Thursday, yeah.

And so we're going to meet.

They're going to have a cabinet meeting Friday and get a real report, and I'll have him.

And when he gets back, I want him to report to you, too.

Yes, that is.

And I'll get him.

So if you let me know where you're going to be Friday, I'll have him come.

I'll be here.

Good.

Now, with regard to the thing, I wanted to say to you that as far as the tax thing is concerned, I've been kicking the Treasury in the butt, and we would be ready.

I don't want you to think that there's any thought on our part of trying to filibuster weight on the tax thing, because I think we've got ours pretty much run.

We've got two or three, as a result of your and my conversations, two or three,

provisions, different provisions, that when Schultz testifies, he'll present.

You remember, I told you we were going to go ahead on the parochial, that we were going to go ahead on the property tax for the elderly one, and you remember you raised the point of the minimum tax.

Well, I'm having to work on that, because I know that that's a problem, and

I just, you're welcome to say that they are working on that.

Now, the other point is that the trade thing, though, I wanted to confirm what China Impeach said.

The trade thing, I consider linked and extracomplete to what George has now begun to negotiate abroad.

In other words, if we don't follow up with trade fast or as quickly as we can,

then the monetary thing is not going to have the substance behind it and the backing that we need.

And so it's very important, if we could, and if you could do it, that we move on the trade legislation.

Let's work it out this way.

So that we don't do it.

But I just want to be clear to you that we're not trying to push off the tax thing.

We want that, too.

But the trade thing, I think, is the first priority at the moment.

All right, let's work it out this way.

We go through the 19th on our public witnesses.

This is on tax.

That's right.

19th of the month, April.

Then we take off that night.

I think we come back on the 30th.

Right.

That's Easter.

Right.

The 30th of April.

Right.

In other words, Easter's late this year.

That's Easter recess.

Right.

Now, if George could testify that day.

On trade?

That's right.

No, on taxes.

He wanted to testify on taxes, I think.

And then we can use that as an excuse plus the urgency of the other matter.

Right.

To say that we're laying aside going into executive sessions and we'll begin our hearings on trade on the 1st of May, I guess, would be after the 30th of April.

In other words, you would want him to testify on the tax thing on the 30th?

Well, the 80 coins that he thought they were ready.

He's leaving, of course.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I think I would like to be able to say that I don't know what George could do there, but your point is that you would like him to testify on taxes on the 30th and then lay it aside and then go into trade.

That's right.

He can come back the next day.

And then your people would work on the tax thing yourself.

We'll work out trade before we go back into tax.

Mm-hmm.

I do need you to say, I think, Mr. President, that this is a matter of urgency or something.

Right.

Well, I do say that.

I would say this, that I consider both very important.

But I consider this urgent because we have to get this because this involves American jobs.

It involves the stability of the dollar.

It involves, you know, balance of payments, all those things.

But, I mean, for the average person, what he's interested in are those jobs.

It involves our jobs.

It involves our businesses.

Take-home pay, cost of living, everything else.

I'm sorry, it doesn't affect food prices.

If you've got any schemes on that, let me know.

I wish we could do something about that.

If we could do something about that without hurting farmers, I wish we could.

You know, clothing prices are going up.

I don't know whether they're telling you or not, but my people who are in the Far East buying suits and dresses and things like that now tell me that they just cannot supply us.

Is that right?

That's what they tell me.

We don't have the supply here at home.

Well, I guess the world is just getting richer.

That's the problem.

Everybody's got the money now, and it's costing...

I was looking at the figures for inflation for the other countries, and it's interesting to note that the...

The British are at 7.

We're at 3.7 right now.

The British are at 7.6.

The Germans are at 6.

The Japanese are 6 or 5 or 6.

And the French are 6.

So we're doing better than others, but that isn't good enough because of the food thing.

They don't expect us to maintain that rate, you see.

Yeah, I know.

I know.

There's one thing I suggested to George that I think you ought to insist that he look at.

Yeah.

And that's the effort to get this euro-dollar back into the United States in the investment.

and bonds.

About $10 billion, I understand, fled the country in January alone.

I suggested to him that we forego the tax on the interest and the dividend.

I think we should do it permanently, not for a year or something like that, because of these long-term investments we're seeking.

And I don't know whether I can sell it or not, but I told him I tried to.

You, it's something that I am not, I must say, I would be less than, I can't, I'm not familiar enough with it.

What they do when they send this money out to the foreign investor, they withhold a certain percent.

It depends upon the treaty largely.

If there's no treaty, it's 30%.

But I understand we have treaties with quite a few countries in the world, all the way from 5% to 15%.

There's not a lot of revenue involved in it.

$20 to $30 billion of that money flowing back in here, it would have a tremendous impact on our balance payment.

Right.

I see.

All right.

I'll remember when he gets back to work, but you be sure to hit him with it on Friday.

Now, one other thing.

I want to have a bipartisan legislative leaders' meeting, and if you could mention this, if you would, to whenever you see them, the speaker and the board.

but i on on trade but i think uh what you would like would you like to have the bipartisan meeting first or the testimony first or which they have the bipartisan meeting first in other words in other words why don't we say then that we will let me just take a look what is the date you're gonna may uh think that on april 30 april 30 tax reform and then i can say that this other matter is so urgent

And two, I think the American public should have an opportunity of digesting what the treasurer is recommending before we go into it.

Now, this is a, you would like a bipartisan meeting on Tuesday the 1st, then, would you?

How would that be?

Well, that's the date he would come in now with a trade.

If you want to do it that morning early.

Yeah, well, you know how hard it is to get anybody around Monday.

Well, I guess they'd be around.

We could either, if he's going to testify, you mean he'd be testifying for your committee on Tuesday?

on Tuesday on trade.

Yeah, but so you'd rather have a bipartisan meeting.

Well, I'll tell you, if we do a bipartisan meeting, we'll do it at 8 o'clock in the morning.

Well, that'd be fine.

I can make the announcement, you see, the 19th before we leave.

Yeah.

Then we are going to hear him on the 30th.

Then immediately go into trade on the 1st of May.

I can work it out.

Right, right.

Well, okay, sounds all right to me.

I don't know whether I'll have to get him prepared on the taxes on the 30th and the other and the 1st.

Eddie Cohen told me that they were prepared in most respects.

I don't know whether they paid attention to you or not.

Right.

Well, I've made all the decisions on the tax writing myself, but I've told them, you know, to get all the law together.

That's a little hard.

You and I know we can't go into many areas.

Listen, we all know a lot of this is gobbledygook and facade, but there are a few good things we can do, and we ought to do those.

Right.

And we want to do the good things, the things that really mean something, and...

in their way of reform.

May I say this, that in conversation with you, I found you as determined to, in your second term, energize and activate the domestic situation as you have been in your first four years in the United States.

Absolutely.

We now, well,

We've got to continue to work on the foreign as well, but we have to, but in the terms of the domestic thing, that we've got great challenges here and that we want to get the, in terms of the domestic economy.

And also, you can also point out that there's such a very close relationship between the foreign and the domestic because a strong domestic economy is essential.

A strong dollar is essential if we're going to play.

and the right kind of a trade policy affects all of our foreign things.

So it's all tied in together.

We can talk all we want about, you know, changing the value of the dollar, and we can talk all we want about tariffs and the rest, and unless this economy of ours is productive and the American workers are productive, we're not going to be able to compete with the rest of the world.

So I think the continuation of our foreign initiatives is dependent upon

uh some very strong vigorous actions on the domestic side so we can we can tie it in and we're going to work on that although you are you are okay well you take care thanks a lot don't don't bend over thanks a lot

Nixon phone call with Mills on Tax reform and Trade legislation

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on March 17, 1973

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