Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 051-002
Date: Tuesday, March 23, 1971 at 3:00 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Agnew, Spiro T. (Vice President); Weinberger, Caspar W. ("Cap"); Romney, George W.; Stokes, Carl B.; Tate, James H. J.; Gribbs, Roman S.; Maier, Henry W.; Welch, Louie; Maltester, Jack D.; Massell, Sam; Cervantes, Alfonso J.; Alexander, Lee; Landrieu, Maurice E. ("Moon"); Lindsay, John V.; Kramer, Lawrence F.; Haskell, Harry G.; Driggs, John W.; Lugar, Richard G.; Dyke, William D.; Blackwell, Robert J.; D'Alesandro, Thomas J., III; Hays, Will H., Jr.; White, Kevin D.; Gibson, Kenneth A.; Curran, Frank; Siebels, George G., Jr.; Sullivan, George M.; Uccello, Antonina; Kilgore, Ann H.; Knecht, Robert W.; Alioto, Joseph; Flaherty, Peter F.; Healy, Patrick; Gunther, John J.
Recording device: Cabinet Room
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/051-002

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite it as authoritative.

[50:53] Ladies and gentlemen, we would like to go right forward on this meeting, and I would like first to walk.
[51:10] Now, I know, I hear all of you personally.
[51:34] Well, I know too that a good deal of concern has been expressed among majors in particular.
[51:55] about the effect of our general revenue-sharing program, which we know we worked back.
[52:00] We worked out that formula, I think, pretty well.
[52:03] I mean, we worked the states, the counties, the cities, and so forth and so on.
[52:07] But with regard to the special revenue-sharing program, just whether the effect would be due towards the
[52:14] cities, compared to what they presently are receiving, and to put them in a poorer position, both nationally and otherwise, than they presently are in.
[52:30] That is not what we wanted.
[52:31] It's not our intention.
[52:33] It's not what our programs do.
[52:35] It's not our intention.
[52:36] The only way, however, to get a part of this is for you, as mayors, to raise these questions.
[52:41] We've got the people here at the convention, and we'll try to answer them.
[52:46] I've instructed the members of our staff to give you the answers.
[52:50] You're not satisfied with what you saw, so I'm trying to see what the, I'd like to attend the, have as chairman of the, the briefing room, the vice president, you know, he's traveling around the country with this.
[53:09] He knows these questions as they come around and has talked to some of you.
[53:13] And I said, Mr. Vice President, I'd like to hear a meeting over you.
[53:17] Feel free as they go on in the discussion to raise your questions.
[53:22] I have several mayors who will make statements.
[53:26] But we're here to hear your views.
[53:29] Thank you, Mr. President.
[53:31] Ladies and gentlemen, first of all, we're very grateful to Mayor Tank and Mayor Luther for
[53:38] diligently arranging this opportunity for the President to have a chance to hear first-hand from you some of your impressions of the General Special Revenue Sharing Program and conversely to give us an opportunity to present to you some of the
[53:58] more necessary regions of federal governmental financing, which I've never understood since I received my first budget reading from Charlie Schultz, but others are going to have now.
[54:14] It's more conversive, even though probably less sympathetic to than ever.
[54:19] I say that because I'm torqued by my awareness of the tremendous problems that you can face as mayors, as executive, as governors, and yet at the same time I'm forced to accept the irrationality of the budgetary imitations.
[54:40] Before I ask Jeff Weinberger, the director of the budget, to comment to some extent on these legislative constraints and how they are affected by, how they affect our revenue sharing programs,
[54:56] I'd like to ask if possibly Mayor Tate would like to take any time with us.
[55:02] I'd like to request the Vice President, Mr. President, the gentleman, the Brother Mayors and Sister Mayors, said, or requested, I want to say that we welcome the 770 question and would say quite casually that we endorse your consent.
[55:24] General Reverend Shearer, it's just one proud medical problem there.
[55:29] We go on and on and on about it.
[55:31] I said, well, it's a lot of noise at the time.
[55:34] And there was some, with some excessive respect, there's such an undersharing.
[55:41] We believe that this is the only answer to rallying us with our problems in the streets of America.
[55:47] I think it's time and time again that our national community
[55:52] We're significantly at our knees in Washington.
[55:54] We deeply appreciate your efforts in giving your way to the administration.
[56:00] As you know, we do have problems with the pilots, and the Air U.S. is a problem for no part.
[56:06] We expect to explain to them in the manner in which we go about this, enough to get them to go along.
[56:14] Let us rise above politics because we are in this undisciplined situation.
[56:19] I think you could tell you off the board and all of us, and we didn't even think of them.
[56:24] This is free and airy.
[56:25] We agree with you.
[56:26] And we want to help you.
[56:27] And I think that practically every mayor in this room has been busy with this question delegation for the last two days.
[56:34] And they've been waiting them to go along.
[56:36] And they've made some real progress.
[56:39] I don't hear from anyone.
[56:40] I understand.
[56:42] Well, I was certainly excited yesterday when I pointed you in, old man.
[56:45] Well, I'm glad you could read what's happening in the town.
[56:51] Thank you, Mike.
[56:52] It grows.
[56:52] It's very significant, though, that some of the other various plans are suggested are one-shot deals.
[56:58] They would take care of the problem later, and this grows as the tax base grows, the income of the federal government grows, the amount received by the cities and by the states grows.
[57:09] So you've got 10 billion down the line in specific concerns of the Baha'is, correct?
[57:16] And I believe they would accept the proposition, too, that many people would advise on that.
[57:22] Mr. President, I would second what Mayor Tate, as far as our appreciation for this meeting.
[57:29] We view it also as an opportunity for us to be available to help you.
[57:36] And I think that it's a reciprocal situation, as you expressed it.
[57:41] Carl Stokes, in his remarks this morning, and I'm not still committed to being made this afternoon, but he spoke very eloquently to the point that the Democratic Party historically stood for the revenue-sharing concept.
[57:55] And I said that as the Republican mayor,
[57:59] And we put this very candidate in front of all of us.
[58:02] And we had some problems in our party regarding Congress.
[58:06] I think that this is going to have to be an extremely well-coordinated attack by the administration and by mayors.
[58:15] And in terms of the general revenue sharing, where there's unanimous feeling that this is a good thing, that the special programs,
[58:25] The man wanted to see the elitist license sheet, which is understandable.
[58:29] I could interrupt you, incidentally.
[58:30] The endorsement of General Reckman's sharing of the arm is too important, because it is that which has the greatest problem, Louise Wheaton.
[58:39] In fact, as it is there, where you've got to admit him, these are both very competent, able men.
[58:46] You're no two abler men.
[58:48] And in the Congress is John Lanzino's manager, and the other one is John Burns.
[58:53] And both of them are ex-general revolutionaries and for some of the special revolutionaries as a promoting company.
[58:59] So the general revolutionary endorsement is extremely important in terms of what we need in the company.
[59:06] I think the point that came to the board again and again, even after two days of sessions, two mayors came to me this morning and asked me, what is the difference between general resident sharing and special?
[59:18] We've been talking about this for two days, but the fact is that the terminology...
[59:23] Here is a hang-up.
[59:25] In other words, we're getting revenue sharing in the papers, and to the enemies of general revenue sharing, are using any number of devices within the other six programs.
[59:39] to try to do that yet, and furthermore offer various alternatives to it, which the Vice President mentioned in his speech, which is what was held likewise this morning, and that should be reached out to the Science Council.
[59:52] I think my comment is to be required that we are all for it.
[59:56] At the same point, I think we need some help in clarifying this within our own membership.
[1:00:02] then the difference is there may be a new terminology, and this might be helpful to you in coming to your administration and taking a reading of how we can be most effective in getting across this endorsement, which is universally valid for the general plan.
[1:00:19] I think a lot of people say, why do you call it special?
[1:00:25] I think it's really something called consolidation or blockage.
[1:00:31] Of course, it has to do with the essential restrictive
[1:00:36] In addition, any kind of grant as opposed to revenue sharing are some of the tails that have been taken off special revenue sharing.
[1:00:45] The matching requirement, the requirement of prior approval, the requirement of maintenance of effort, the three most important requirements that would leave tremendous federal control in these programs of grant and aid that are now being taken out of unrestricted capacity.
[1:01:05] and now left to the local governments, which are in the state of advance, to evaluate and to make decisions as to the proper utility of it.
[1:01:17] So that's why we use the term central energy sharing.
[1:01:20] It wasn't for the purpose of attempting to create, to make something new and exciting out of something.
[1:01:28] It is new and exciting because
[1:01:32] The philosophy of the control of this money on 30, just to get it directly grants, is now a philosophy of turning it over to mayors, governors, county officials, with the least possible restriction.
[1:01:48] Not with any temporary requirements in the .
[1:01:53] With that, it's certainly precious that he has our time in a little bit, and I hope I get a chance to visit on your home ground with many of the players that I haven't seen as I go around the country on this subject, because I think if we need to go into these
[1:02:11] Special Revenue Sharing programs in great detail.
[1:02:13] I'm sure you know them just completely at this point.
[1:02:17] Each one of those messages, because some of them haven't went up very long.
[1:02:21] But we will work with you, explaining these programs
[1:02:26] If there's any input you have on that modification, I'm sure we're so receptive to that.
[1:02:30] You're not, you don't come out with any pre-conceived ideas every single week.
[1:02:35] So, if you come out here, it's perfect, although I would caution you that these programs are not something that the Nixon administration sat and conceived out of the brilliance of contemplating their own papers.
[1:02:49] This came under the bipartisan effort of the Italian Commission on Governmental Relations and the
[1:02:56] and the mayor's conferences and the governor's conferences.
[1:03:00] It's the best bipartisan thinking of the past 10 or 15 years that we've attempted to put in place votes.
[1:03:05] But there's still these budgetary constraints and limitations, which I'm sure as most of you haven't really considered.
[1:03:13] And I think that Jeff Weinberger would be at this point
[1:03:19] It would be very helpful to all of us if you could delineate some of the constraints that we have to operate under in some of these proposals.
[1:03:29] I'd like to say it's where a cat goes wrong.
[1:03:34] I'm telling you.
[1:03:36] Not in California, of course.
[1:03:39] I hear that.
[1:03:40] Yes, earlier, in California.
[1:03:41] And there was a little cat that was struck hard in California.
[1:03:45] He certainly stepped away.
[1:03:49] It's a legend for accidents.
[1:03:51] So he has some idea of the problems.
[1:03:55] He's responsible for any...
[1:03:57] We do have some major constraints and on a larger scale they are things that I think you're all familiar with in your own individual budget making processes.
[1:04:22] The Office of Management and Budget is actually the only office that has any concerns or that is concerned with the overall view.
[1:04:30] You know, Congress passes an individual appropriation bill and finishes that particular topic as far as they're concerned.
[1:04:39] And there's no agency that they have that adds up the total and sees what the entire appropriation outlay picture is.
[1:04:47] at any given moment, and we have to be concerned about that because that is our responsibility as the Irvine office able to give the President general and updated information on these matters.
[1:04:59] There are several constraints on spending under which we have to operate.
[1:05:05] We have a sort of a continuing dichotomy.
[1:05:08] Congress will pass a bill authorizing so much spending.
[1:05:12] But at the same time, Congress has on the books, believes on the books, a statute that forbids spending and restrains spending in various ways.
[1:05:20] And we have to be concerned with the enforcement of all of those laws so that we don't violate them and so that we do respect the intention and will of Congress.
[1:05:32] We see this most forcefully in the membership of the House Appropriations Committee from time to time.
[1:05:39] We'll write to the President urging him to sign the debt, and in the same letter we'll say, of course we know, and you know, you don't have to spend all of it, but it's fine to measure in any of it.
[1:05:52] The very same congressman who wrote that particular letter spent about half an hour attacking us for not releasing a spending under that particular bill when he had been fully aware of the problems that would lead us to withhold and reserve some of the spending.
[1:06:09] The first of these requirements had to be out of the state of Congress.
[1:06:13] has passed an outlay ceiling which gears the spending with certain exceptions to the fiscal year 1970 outlays.
[1:06:21] Some allowances made for the uncontrollables.
[1:06:25] But in general, that outlay ceiling is a very real restraint and requires us to spend considerably less than the Congress appropriates each year.
[1:06:37] that we have to have in mind at all times is the debt ceiling.
[1:06:40] You may have noticed that just last week Congress did pass an increase in the debt ceiling, and that took us from 395 to 430 figures.
[1:06:48] Prior to that time, we were within four days of exceeding the debt ceiling if we had permitted our place to continue.
[1:06:58] You know, the only way the Treasury could refinance is between tax receipt companies and still more obligations.
[1:07:06] and to retire existing operations by selling new ones to take their place.
[1:07:11] And neither of those operations could take place if the total exceeds the existing deadline.
[1:07:17] So that we were within less than $400 million, which by federal standards is practically breathing on the ceiling of that deadline.
[1:07:28] It wasn't until that was expanded just last week that we had any leeway at all on that situation.
[1:07:35] Another problem that faces us constantly, and it's one that's very hard for me to appreciate, coming from dealing with a state budget which, large as it was, didn't get anywhere near this magnitude,
[1:07:47] And that is that the federal budget and the federal expenditure program has a tremendous effect upon inflation, much more than the spending program.
[1:07:56] It has a very immediate impact on the economy as a whole.
[1:08:00] And we need to fight inflation every hour.
[1:08:03] We can't simply authorize expenditures or
[1:08:07] a service, an automatic clerical operation in writing out the checks, we have to be concerned with what the total is at any given time on inflation.
[1:08:17] And if we are ever in a situation where we allow the outlays to exceed the full fund rate, we believe we would be in a situation that brought on the inflation here.
[1:08:29] and repeating that, that we are now trying to eliminate.
[1:08:32] We don't want to do that.
[1:08:34] And I think no one in this room would want any more inflation because the inflation would want to increase the sale of units.
[1:08:42] It drives interest rate up and makes it just about impossible for you to operate.
[1:08:46] It does nobody any good.
[1:08:49] So we try to
[1:08:51] hold the expenditures at any given time to those areas that will be covered by the full-fledged revenues.
[1:09:00] The other problem, and one that I'm sure many of you are familiar with, it's a very familiar story in state government, is the fact that only about a third of this budget is controlled.
[1:09:09] The President has no real discretion, no real decision-making ability.
[1:09:13] Over two-thirds of his pledges to such items is interest on the national debt, which now exceeds $21 billion a year.
[1:09:21] All social security, welfare, Medicare, a great many of these programs, our function is simply limited to
[1:09:28] being required to write checks in the amounts of the claims presented by states or other government units.
[1:09:35] So that there is only about a third of the whole budget where any of this appropriation, inflation control, compliance with congressional
[1:09:44] statues can be realized.
[1:09:47] And that means that we have to necessarily work within that one third of the budget and within a substantial portion of that one third is in construction.
[1:09:57] It's the only areas where it is possible
[1:10:01] Temporarily, from time to time, as the overall fiscal situation requires, that we can make any kind of a titway in the kind of appropriation restraint and outlay that we are required by law to make.
[1:10:15] So there's very little room for discretion in any of those areas.
[1:10:20] Now, none of this is really new.
[1:10:22] Every single administration back beyond and behind the Eisenhower administration has had to preserve and control appropriations.
[1:10:32] There's never been a time since 1958 when less than five billion dollars, four and a half billion dollars, was restrained and was repealed.
[1:10:43] And the average, the percentage,
[1:10:46] is just about six and a half to seven percent of the total outlays that are held and reserved as appropriations on this kind of basis that I have described for these basic reasons.
[1:11:02] The last Eisenhower year was 6.9 billion was held in reserve, and that was about 7.5% of total calculations.
[1:11:13] President Johnson, the year 1967, for example, 10.6 billion was reserved, and this was about 6.7%.
[1:11:21] And we at the present time are reserving approximately $11 billion, but on a very temporary basis to where leases are made every day.
[1:11:31] And new items from time to time are all temporary depending on the situation of the public debt limit having been lifted.
[1:11:40] We have a somewhat easier situation there.
[1:11:42] So the necessity for doing this and the fact that it has been done,
[1:11:48] is not new.
[1:11:49] It has always been with us, and I can't see really any other answer than that it always will be.
[1:11:56] We do have some specifics that we'd like to try to answer, questions that you might have.
[1:12:02] I want to point out just one program about which there was considerable question and comment.
[1:12:07] And that was urban mass transit.
[1:12:08] The question was raised as to why we had slowed the outlay of urban mass transit funds.
[1:12:15] What happened in urban mass transit funds was that until January 2nd of this year, Congress had not authorized us to spend more than $214 million a year on that.
[1:12:25] You'll recall that these funds were tied up with the Transportation Department appropriation bill, which I might say still hasn't been passed.
[1:12:33] It was submitted a year ago in January.
[1:12:35] So that has not been enacted yet.
[1:12:38] And consequently, we have a rule of appropriations within that on an annual level, which is about $150 for the first six months.
[1:12:46] That amount was released.
[1:12:48] Congress, then in January, passed a continuing resolution.
[1:12:52] So they weren't going to pass an appropriation bill.
[1:12:54] So they said, all right, now you're free to go ahead and spend like a $600 million level on this whole rest of the system here, which is just in trust.
[1:13:03] We did not feel that we should release more than half on that kind of a manual basis, 350 million, which we did.
[1:13:12] to pour out more of the program.
[1:13:15] We are fully prepared to release the balance and we are fully prepared and have asked Congress for authority to spend the $600 million level in 1972.
[1:13:26] Congress has given us 3.1 billion, but they said this must be spread over a five year period.
[1:13:32] So theoretically, we can release all 3.1 billion and try and spend it all in one year.
[1:13:38] In a sense, that then is a withheld appropriation, but it is actually simply an attempt to follow the basic programming and get new dollars out at the times that you would most probably spend in the areas where they were intended by Congress to be.
[1:13:52] So that we didn't have a lot of perhaps technical problems,
[1:13:57] that we have to be concerned with.
[1:13:59] There is no desire here to work the will of Congress.
[1:14:02] There's no desire to do anything other than get the dollars out in the urban programs as rapidly as we possibly can, given all of these other basic constraints and restraints that we have.
[1:14:14] And I think we'll find that most of the programs that do have temporary holds on them are in just that stage, temporary and might not be superseded by special revenue sharing or any one of the number of other considerations that we'll read.
[1:14:30] But there has never been a time within modern federal history when there hasn't been a necessity to get holds.
[1:14:37] from time to time, very substantial amounts of appropriations from Congress.
[1:14:41] Thank you, Chair.
[1:14:42] I think Mayor Alley had a question.
[1:14:44] I did have the Vice-President and Vice-President.
[1:14:55] We made a presentation to the Congress last year about a field that's an emergency, almost an emergency, about the matter of urban fields.
[1:15:03] We pointed out that some of the redevelopment agencies were running out of money.
[1:15:10] Another rather dramatic confirmation of that fact, just three weeks ago, and what I say about that, it's just so simple, all of the cities are running out of money.
[1:15:21] That dramatic verification came when we told that our almost $21 million to operate the redevelopment agency to keep certain programs going would have to be reduced from $21 million to something like 10% or 15% of that.
[1:15:33] We were going to get actually maybe $2 million or $3 million.
[1:15:41] And this came from the area director of HUD who expressed some embarrassment himself about the fact that the storage is funded for some reason.
[1:15:50] made known that he had to take his actions.
[1:15:54] It's a very serious situation, not only in Texas still, but throughout the United States.
[1:16:00] Now, that particular $200 million that was added to the, by the Congress, was after 300 community leaders and mayors came to work.
[1:16:08] It was an agency.
[1:16:09] You can see all these mayors have all received big, little clashes, actually, in the middle side.
[1:16:20] And they all came to Washington and in many of these demonstrations, one of the two companies that developed was desperately needed.
[1:16:27] So Congress tacked it on.
[1:16:29] Now I'm aware, in fact, that there is a general outplayed ceiling in that point in particular with the fact that it brings in Andy Weinberger on what the law is.
[1:16:37] Thank you.
[1:16:38] Thank you.
[1:16:39] Thank you.
[1:17:00] I don't have the questions.
[1:17:02] I'm going to get it out while you're done.
[1:17:06] That was the section 5.1A, Title V of the D.S.
[1:17:11] of the year 1971, but it's outlawed in the back section.
[1:17:16] Existence of the circumstances from that see any such amounts as are appropriated by the Congress in these circumstances.
[1:17:23] I can't use that reference for what it's worth, but the situation in the honor of the people in some of our cities is quite desperate.
[1:17:31] And the problem about cutting down, say, from $21 million to $2 million on certain ongoing programs.
[1:17:37] And how do you go out of these communities?
[1:17:41] and then tell them that we're going to fire the staff, or give them those determinations for July 1st, and this is a desperate problem, because most of us have now secured a group of very responsible macros in those communities, who have been fighting off the mills, in my home community, we had a rather dramatic one that killed some of our native friends, when Eldridge Cleaver started to train these young boys in violence, he didn't care who he wanted to talk about, when he started to train these young boys, he said, come on, direct me.
[1:18:09] And the black community is just demanding on them.
[1:18:12] By the way, the way he takes care of his time.
[1:18:13] Now these same men are running these programs and rustic a lot of the communities now.
[1:18:17] And tell them we're going to have to fire them.
[1:18:20] It's a very serious thing and I just can't emphasize the seriousness of it.
[1:18:23] And what I am saying about San Francisco is true about all the cities represented by mayors around the table and the other cities in America.
[1:18:31] So we would urgently request that while we are
[1:18:35] I want first of all to thank you for your initiative in bringing forward the Refugee Sheriff.
[1:18:39] We got fighting a lot of old friends of ours that do not want to honor the Refugee Sheriff.
[1:18:44] We're telling them they're wrong.
[1:18:45] We're going to continue that fight.
[1:18:47] But if you think your program is correct, we're going to lobby very intensely.
[1:18:51] for your program.
[1:18:52] Those are two birds in the bush.
[1:18:55] It's a bird we have in the hands that we don't want taken away from us.
[1:18:59] The President needs to make a special place.
[1:19:03] I take comfort in Kathy's statement that these are not frozen or withheld forever.
[1:19:10] There are circumstances that it was called for their release on a temporary basis.
[1:19:15] We urgently ask for the release of those funds which are being held back on urban renewal, on water and sewer, on public housing, on some OEO programs that are being funded approximately $800 million.
[1:19:31] Yes, the Urban Renewable Funds Billion 2 is available for expenditure and Billion 2 will be released.
[1:19:40] The full amount will be released.
[1:19:42] There will be, had it been a few months delay,
[1:19:46] But all of it will be released, and the actual level, the actual dollars out are $1,043,971 in 1970, $1,082,000 in 1971, so we'll be releasing more this year than last year.
[1:20:01] And $800 million is scheduled for release in 1972, more like four to six months.
[1:20:08] And you know, at the end of that time, we're very hopeful that we
[1:20:15] special revenue sharing for our community and the other community development will be adopted.
[1:20:20] With respect to the 10th and 6th goal of project, you know, your re-involved the director, Joseph Pennant, talked to me last week.
[1:20:28] Mentioned the figures, you mentioned the 26,000 and so on.
[1:20:32] I told him it didn't sound right and that we believed that there were some major differences with that, and he said if he found he was right, he was going to call me again yesterday to see if we could do anything about it.
[1:20:43] He didn't call, so I'm going on the assumption that he found that those figures which had previously been used by him and which he would use today actually were not relevant, that there is not that much of a reduction required in the specific San Francisco project.
[1:20:57] But in any event, the urban renewal funds will be
[1:21:00] All released.
[1:21:01] This has to be released within, well, the bulk of them this year.
[1:21:05] And the remaining will be released after June, after July 1st, in the first year.
[1:21:10] I'm determined to give you that picture after Sunday night.
[1:21:13] I don't know if I believe in my goal, but after Sunday night, he gave me that picture, and I will check it to you again, but for now, the picture, the problem is still there.
[1:21:23] All of these things, not just him.
[1:21:25] Okay, the financial standards are saying now it is going to be released.
[1:21:29] All of those funds, all of the available for related funds for urban renewal will be released.
[1:21:34] Well, I think we ought to be prepared on this.
[1:21:35] I don't want you to walk out of here without a misunderstanding.
[1:21:40] As I understand it, the $200 million additional will be released between now and next year.
[1:21:48] Mr. Deere.
[1:21:48] Mr. Deere.
[1:21:49] Yes, sir.
[1:21:49] That's right.
[1:21:51] In the middle of the night, Mr. Deere.
[1:21:53] Right.
[1:21:54] I don't understand that the new lease is for the balance of this.
[1:22:00] I do want to make that a case of this, but I cannot have all of the mazes here that the new release.
[1:22:06] This year, this is when it's desperately needed.
[1:22:09] It is budgeted for next year.
[1:22:11] The $200 million, as you know, was budgeted for next year in 1972, budgeted for the first half of the next fiscal year.
[1:22:18] I think, however, it's desirable to bring this thing into perspective because
[1:22:24] Number one, the need is tremendous.
[1:22:25] There isn't any question about the magnitude of the need.
[1:22:28] It's tremendous.
[1:22:29] On the other hand, I think we need to recognize the extent to which the expenditures have increased.
[1:22:35] They've increased 21 times in 12 years.
[1:22:38] It should go back to 1960.
[1:22:41] The onlay figure was $105 million.
[1:22:46] And, uh, I don't know.
[1:22:49] Community development programs.
[1:22:51] The L.A. figure for 1960 was 105 million, and for next year, 1972, on the basis of the recommendations, it'll be 2,106,000,000.
[1:22:59] Well, that's 20, almost 21,000,000.
[1:23:06] Now if you go back all the way to 1969, we were only putting up about 572 men in urban renewal.
[1:23:21] And this year we've been in two minutes or so.
[1:23:25] I've been in four years.
[1:23:26] I admit it's very low in relation to the needs for me.
[1:23:30] And the last word I would like to say on it is that those are community leaders, including community leaders from every part of the country.
[1:23:37] 25 of them, for example, in California under the mayor's commission.
[1:23:41] a special documented case before that appropriation committee, before the expenditure this year, provided that special documented case, and we would greatly urge that that might be released before the end of this year.
[1:23:54] Thank you, Mr. President.
[1:23:57] Mr.
[1:23:58] Senator, I have one question for this.
[1:24:02] Lieutenant, are you telling me that the $200 million is not available for 1971?
[1:24:11] As it's set up currently, the $200 million additional that was appropriated in the 1971 appropriation bill becomes available in the first half of the 1970s.
[1:24:27] Well, the release plans we have with the overall outlay problems that we have with all of the other requirements that the government has indicated and the desirability for three more months of $200 billion.
[1:24:47] Yes.
[1:24:47] Mr. President, Mr. Vice President.
[1:24:57] It's a very real problem for us as we try to help the administration, the plans of the administration come to us.
[1:25:07] When we have the knowledge that we did find that there's available money and there is a present capacity to send it and
[1:25:20] It is not being made available.
[1:25:23] It feeds those arguments of the opponents of revenue-sharing, particularly special revenue-sharing, which they make inclusive of, that the president is hoodwinking,
[1:25:39] The mayors and the public about the dollar figures that are .
[1:25:46] The cities that presently have programs that
[1:25:56] can utilize the money and who are much in support of the votes of the general revolutionaries, they find themselves in the most untenable position, particularly insulting to their Congress.
[1:26:12] when in opposing the general resolution, they focus their attention on the fact that the administration will not make available to that city now the money that that city can use either to model cities or in the construction of public housing.
[1:26:29] And this is not all cities winning there.
[1:26:31] This is just urban renewal and it is simply a matter of a three-month security that was built on July 1 when the full availability was to come, was to wider understand.
[1:26:42] You're talking about three months from when he spent over three months trying to get the money for his project.
[1:26:50] And that's specific to a billion dollars bill.
[1:26:55] I don't understand the availability of the program.
[1:27:00] All that I know is if there's some money available now that has been properly authorized and that a decision has been made to hold over, I'm just telling you that it's a practical problem.
[1:27:12] You make it very difficult for the man here in the political process of trying to get support.
[1:27:20] But this program, and in fact it isn't just that, he made it very difficult for us within the group itself to talk to a Joseph Ali O'Toole about total and complete support, when what he's saying is he's got some land cleared there ready to go now and coming down to San Andro, for instance, in Baltimore.
[1:27:41] and we wanted to work hard with us on a program that will take effect in 1972, and they have to produce now in this city.
[1:27:48] If the money wasn't available, then it would be different, but this is money that we're talking about, authorized and animated.
[1:27:55] Mr. President, I understand that you're concerned, but I'm struggling better than others to be qualified.
[1:28:03] I don't think, Jeff, that you have really made completely clear the...
[1:28:09] the fact that there are all kinds of tremendous urgency where this argument cannot be responded to because of congressional restraints on debt limits and other spending, and that when the budget director submits his budget to the president, he cannot consider
[1:28:30] problems of urban renewal and the fact that we must consider this money that's available, made available by the Congress in the sense of the overall spending practices of the administration and also the overall constraints
[1:28:47] congressional prohibitions against spending in the aggregates more than they allowed.
[1:28:52] That was what I attended to when you point out that this is one of the great many programs and we have added up all of our outlay requirements for the next three months.
[1:29:03] there is no way that we can honor all of those.
[1:29:07] And so what we try to do is face them as much as we possibly can with a immune discussion to all programs.
[1:29:17] And I think the fact that a billion dollars is allocated to this one is an indication of the administration's scale of importance that it attaches to.
[1:29:26] When I appeared before the committee on this very subject,
[1:29:30] Senator Proxmar, for the first time, who's questioned most sharply on this point, that finally realized that when Congress appropriates at about a $230 billion and then sets a ceiling of $214 billion, even though that ceiling is flexible and reflects additional appropriations, as has been indicated, the example of appropriations involve additional modeling, and when it does that, year after year, as it's been doing it here ever since the Eisenhower administration,
[1:29:58] then instead of Congress appropriating on a basis where you can count on the use of those appropriations, they necessarily shift the responsibility for bringing the actual expenditures down down to the outlay ceiling to the administrative branch.
[1:30:15] And that's what's been happening here.
[1:30:18] And that's why you have these appropriations in many instances that are in excess of what can be authorized for expenditure.
[1:30:26] Now, he was upset because he didn't like the way emergency priorities was established in the determination of where you cut.
[1:30:32] But the men in Congress appropriated one level plus a ceiling in another level below it.
[1:30:36] And does that here after here?
[1:30:39] That's what happens.
[1:30:40] If the mine in Gatlinburg's going with differences, that's the area by the... Jim Bradshaw, area director.
[1:30:47] Yes.
[1:30:48] But yes, they told me he put, out of 1,500 units, the public housing, we are...
[1:30:53] there to go with, he's only giving 25.
[1:30:56] And he also gave you the figure of 21 million.
[1:30:58] Out of what you said, I can only give you 10%.
[1:31:00] Whatever that figure is, he's only giving you 10 to 15%.
[1:31:03] Now, 10 to 15% for ongoing programs, when we're talking about keeping the staff together, the organization together, is a blow that we're going to have a hard time overcoming.
[1:31:15] And that's why I suggest that
[1:31:18] If our interpretation of Section 501A is correct, that the appropriation, systemic appropriation is added on to your...
[1:31:29] In that particular case, we have to look at the overall effect of the seating on-lay, and the fact that they extend it with one particular appropriation gives us a little...
[1:31:38] a little over but it doesn't enable us with these funds and the requirements that we have to fund everything the exact month that it might otherwise become due.
[1:31:50] Three months postponement that's involved in this is one that parts of the actual allocation of the funds available are up to the department and how they allocate them aren't entirely their own decisions but the
[1:32:05] The requirement of withholding for a three-month period this amount I think is inescapable.
[1:32:12] The damage that it does I think can be greatly minimized by the certainty of the knowledge that after the fiscal year the releases can be made and will be made.
[1:32:23] The money is going to carry over into fiscal 72.
[1:32:28] Everything that is now appropriately appropriated and authorized by companies will be released between now and .
[1:32:40] As a matter of fact, the urban renewal rate on an annual basis jumps to a billion states in the first half of 72.
[1:32:53] As a result of the 600 million appropriation requested, plus the 200 million that will become available.
[1:33:00] So you've got 800 million for the first 672.
[1:33:02] The first year the President was inaugurated was 572 million.
[1:33:08] The second year it jumped to 1,043,000 and the next year to 1,082,000.
[1:33:11] So there's been a tremendous rate of increase.
[1:33:16] I think we understand our mutual problems, even though we may not be entirely satisfied with the decisions that we've taken.
[1:33:25] Because of our time problem, I think it would be advantageous to ask Mayor Hasselhoff
[1:33:33] I'm willing to comment on some concerns on the transition between special revenue sharing and the existing categorical grants that are being pulled in.
[1:33:47] I think I speak for all our guys around the table.
[1:33:53] Mr. President, we've been traveling around the globe.
[1:33:59] and with some of the press and so forth.
[1:34:04] We have a very desperate feeling in our hearts about what's going to happen this summer.
[1:34:10] And we know that you're not made for this kind of feeling about all your problems.
[1:34:15] But we would not like to leave the room here without you.
[1:34:20] getting that feeling.
[1:34:23] And you've taken leadership here and giving us the symbolic thing we really want, revenue-sharing.
[1:34:30] It's a philosophy, isn't it?
[1:34:33] It's something that really gives us the right to set those priorities in the cities ourselves.
[1:34:44] And we don't really believe that
[1:34:48] that it's possible to run a city in this country unless you have the management at the executive level and then given the revenue in which to do it.
[1:35:02] We deal with the categorical programs all the time, and we need that money, and Joe is talking, and so forth.
[1:35:11] The truth of the matter is we promised these people the funds, and Congress has segregated it.
[1:35:17] It's decisions, and then they set up several layers of government to see that it channels exactly to that program.
[1:35:24] And we travel back and forth that route trying to get that money.
[1:35:29] And maybe it comes out, or maybe the Congress decides, gee, it's got a better program, and so it moves over to another.
[1:35:35] And you're moving this stuff together and giving us some latitude.
[1:35:39] It makes an awful lot of sense to us management-wise.
[1:35:43] But we really think that if we could get the general revenue sharing money,
[1:35:51] To take care of our desperate needs, which exist now, and which I know right from the afternoon, 25% of my budget is in my legislation, which is suburban control and downstate control.
[1:36:03] And if I don't get it, honestly, I don't think I can run the city.
[1:36:07] Now, I think we'll get it.
[1:36:09] We'll get it with a five-part scenario.
[1:36:11] But we really think you've hit the nub of the thing by giving us the power to manage.
[1:36:17] And we think that really we do have that ability now.
[1:36:20] I think it was a time in the past when the mayors of this country didn't have that.
[1:36:24] But we really are in a desperate state, and I don't expect to have much longevity in terms of .
[1:36:34] We just desperately hope there won't be any shut off in any way.
[1:36:44] It means so much.
[1:36:46] If you have to tell the guys, you tell them they're going to start discounting things and then you shut it off.
[1:36:57] and with the sophistication of the increase in the ability to create a riot, to do all these things, bring about a confrontation.
[1:37:07] And all of us have to walk through these things and get knocked on the head, and we think we know what some of the
[1:37:12] Real priorities are better maybe than some of the congressmen do.
[1:37:17] And as a former congressman, I say that in reference.
[1:37:20] But I think we can, if we could be given the funds to operate our basic part, then we could make the city go.
[1:37:27] We're not pessimistic about our ability to do it, but we are very pessimistic when we use up our tax base.
[1:37:35] and he's ghosted that tax base and keep being a bad voice going to an alien legislature trying to get something that we're not going to get.
[1:37:42] That's the condition we're in.
[1:37:45] And we just, we, I know one of the two Republicans in John Park Town over there, uh, they, uh, we, to me, to the Democrat leadership, but seeing these guys really lay into the leadership,
[1:38:02] Democrat to Democrat.
[1:38:04] And to hear Stokes and Carl stand up and say, by golly, we've got a political problem, President.
[1:38:12] You've taken the leadership in this.
[1:38:14] And now, really, this is basically a Democratic proposal.
[1:38:20] We are not partisan.
[1:38:22] We're so desperate now.
[1:38:24] We just hope that the one thing that doesn't happen is that it falls between the executive branch and the Congress.
[1:38:33] And these guys have been really battling within their party to try and bring us about.
[1:38:41] You have taken the leadership, and we just hope you'll carry it through and work with us to get a bill finally this year, because we're pretty desperate.
[1:38:49] Mr. Vice President, I think you were concerned that the mayor asked a lot of questions about the hiatus.
[1:38:59] So I just remember you all had that.
[1:39:03] Well, as Mayor Alley-Odom was, and Mayor Muscello and some others,
[1:39:08] We met with a few of you recently here, took a look at some of the preliminary plans, and as a result of some of the suggestions you made, I think we've covered this question of the transition very fully, and provided the program to continue the categorical assistance on an annual basis.
[1:39:30] It doesn't cut it off at all until Special Revolutionary is adopted.
[1:39:35] And that we're continuing funding on an annual basis just as it is now.
[1:39:40] And we've also provided the whole harmless principle, which will protect studies on the basis of the level they have been receiving categorical grants.
[1:39:52] We'll continue to do that.
[1:39:55] So getting back to the problem that Mayor Aliotta was talking about, really, Mayor, you wouldn't have that problem if you had the special revenue sharing approach because you'd have the funds and you would determine how to use those funds rather than that area directly.
[1:40:12] I appreciate that, and that's the advantage, and that's the advantage now.
[1:40:16] If you don't have it now, if you look at it now, it's my problem.
[1:40:18] I didn't want it.
[1:40:19] I didn't want it.
[1:40:20] Overlook the fact that special revenue sharing solves the problem you're talking about.
[1:40:25] Because then you control the money and you get what you've had on the basis of past reservations and past levels of funding.
[1:40:33] And you have that insurance in that.
[1:40:35] This is very high standard.
[1:40:38] This is true, though, that, Mr. Secretary, under the formula, when we receive the formula, like the city of Syracuse, we'll get $2 million.
[1:40:47] But our whole entitlement is $11 million based on our five-year average.
[1:40:51] The time lapse of one year that I spoke with you about just before, how do we handle that time lapse?
[1:40:57] The city of Syracuse will receive only $2 million, the same way we do now under Urban Renewal.
[1:41:03] And if you'll be able to borrow money, it's just to afford us a program.
[1:41:08] And we pay the interest.
[1:41:11] And we settle up at the end of the year, because we can't know exactly what your expenditure is during the year until the end of the year, and therefore we can't
[1:41:19] in terms of the actual application of your outlay under the urban rule program until the end of the year.
[1:41:26] I wonder if there's any use for your time at this.
[1:41:29] You have already been there.
[1:41:30] No, I'm putting in the formula.
[1:41:31] The formula.
[1:41:32] The formula.
[1:41:32] The formula.
[1:41:33] He gets that taxed in that direction as a result of the terrorism.
[1:41:38] Mr. Secretary, just one other question.
[1:41:39] Did I understand in my presentation that the selection of priorities is in the whole text on the phone?
[1:41:53] Let's get back to that in just a moment.
[1:41:55] All you know is that this is a question of priorities.
[1:41:59] It's a question of the total requirements we have against the total resources.
[1:42:05] The total resources available to us under the various constraints I mentioned just don't quite add up.
[1:42:11] Because of that, we have to do what you asked.
[1:42:13] We have to come to the United States.
[1:42:15] Yeah, well, we have to come to the United States and we may go over all of our tips and they drop them with holding.
[1:42:21] the model of reservations spreads across the entire government.
[1:42:24] On the highways, there's a lot of defense, there's a lot of various areas, and we simply try to ensure that we are gonna have enough to do it.
[1:42:34] The question is, can't we just add more on highways and give us more for
[1:42:39] So these are whatever, why then we have to review the whole thing and see what individual disruptions are being done in that case.
[1:42:46] That is why revenue sharing was really the problem, because it is high-voice revenue.
[1:42:51] It isn't a bottle of citizen's money, an urban renewal money.
[1:42:56] It is money, and that's what you get with revenue sharing.
[1:42:58] Well, Fremont's side of things, basically, is why it doesn't count.
[1:43:02] It is, if you look at it from the eyes of a mayor, like Mayor Stokes said, Mayor Alvarez said,
[1:43:08] The only thing that is not frozen about some of the frozen appropriations is our attitude
[1:43:30] We review them every hour of every day.
[1:43:33] We will certainly have a, as we do all the time, intensive reviews.
[1:43:37] And if there is a particular hardship case or anything of that kind, we're more than willing to listen to it.
[1:43:45] It would be much easier.
[1:43:46] We have the full resources and we can write every check that is owing the day the bill comes in.
[1:43:53] That would be the ideal.
[1:43:54] We've never achieved it, and I don't suppose the federal government ever possibly can with the magnitude we deal with.
[1:44:01] But on this equation problem, we have to fight all the time.
[1:44:05] I think I'll just take a few questions.
[1:44:11] We keep discussing these matters on an individual basis.
[1:44:17] It's all we can do to at least make you aware of our problem that we face.
[1:44:24] We're aware of yours.
[1:44:26] Obviously everybody's not going to be satisfied.
[1:44:29] It doesn't mean that some further give and very strange sort of say this is not possible.
[1:44:35] So we'll leave that there for discussions.
[1:44:38] And let's worry about our time.
[1:44:40] I just want to make one final comment on this.
[1:44:44] These purposes give you the opportunity to explore its pros and cons.
[1:44:51] And if you have suggestions that will help with further improvement, why, we would be very happy to take a look at them.
[1:44:59] We've already made improvements, as we've covered earlier.
[1:45:03] And we'd love to know your thoughts on that.
[1:45:05] That's a lot.
[1:45:06] Well, at this point, if I may, all of the central residential sharing programs have been delivered except for education, which will be very shortly in detail.
[1:45:16] As I've often said, and I know I don't have to convince the mayors here, but
[1:45:21] to those who oppose revolutionary Congress.
[1:45:24] I haven't seen any of the alternatives in detail.
[1:45:27] All I've seen is an off-the-cuff shot that maybe welfare can do the job, a welfare program.
[1:45:36] This is the ultimate living, active, detailed program that's available to solve your problems.
[1:45:43] And that's why we want to make it
[1:45:47] I'd tell or aid to your needs as much as we can, Mr. Secretary-General.
[1:45:51] I'd like to ask Mayor Gribbs, at this point, to speak on a subject that he has particular concern about, and some of those for you, Mr. Vice President.
[1:46:04] I'd like to treat you to three items, one manpower efforts and some for you.
[1:46:13] First let me say that in the city of Detroit, I mean local lines and problems, we have now had unemployment raise 14%.
[1:46:24] And it's not just current.
[1:46:26] Geographical limits in the city of Detroit have been inactive.
[1:46:30] It was 14% last July, and the lowest it ever got was 11%.
[1:46:32] It's been reduced on staff to 14%.
[1:46:35] Of course, if you realize that Indiana City reaches as high, in certain categories, 18 to 25, reaches as high as 25%, would be down as much as one out of two steps.
[1:46:48] So this group of mayors collectively and individually testified on behalf of the Emergency Employment Bill S-71.
[1:46:55] Just recently, and respectfully urge you to sign the bill that's passed because the need is present and continuing and it's very, very drastic and very serious.
[1:47:09] Second, I would urge the board to especially determine the short-time capacity of the study area of manpower revenue sharing.
[1:47:16] Sam tells us it's the correct formula and that it meets our needs and that we are pleased to say that there are very little discussions about it and that we support it.
[1:47:25] Thirdly, I've talked to some of these programs.
[1:47:29] High unemployment, of course, means non-availability of jobs for the youth, and particularly the some.
[1:47:38] I've heard it said by a questioner's official that they haven't hired a secretary in the last four months.
[1:47:43] If they're not going to hire a secretary, how are they going to hire a youth?
[1:47:50] We are informed that the labor department is cutting back on the NYC's class, and that's the number of student union mechanisms and case numbers of jobs that are available for some.
[1:48:00] It has been, last year, more than $14,000, but we cut it back to weeks, 10 weeks at least.
[1:48:07] And our survey shows that the median of a city, small and large, is something like 641,000 jobs, if the federal government can't provide the money.
[1:48:19] So, we support...
[1:48:22] After Senator Chavez's case and Harvey Rook and others' requests, we later started to provide the NYC program with $144.6 million.
[1:48:31] For that purpose, we urgently ask you to provide the $30 million for recreation and the $1.5 million for transportation.
[1:48:40] Most of all, we ask that you do it now.
[1:48:44] The tragedy is, we had a summer program last year, but it was late.
[1:48:50] We were unable to utilize it to a maximum degree because the funding and the efforts was limited to help.
[1:48:58] We met, it was a pleasure to meet with Vice President and members of November 17th, last November.
[1:49:05] At that point, we asked that we have a fixed number
[1:49:11] and funds provided for the first of the week.
[1:49:13] We plan to utilize the program and make maximum use of the funds the federal government is providing.
[1:49:19] The goal then was that in the middle of December or at least January 1, we'd know where we are going to go.
[1:49:26] That has not happened, so we encourage you and your staff to take action along these lines.
[1:49:34] We urge you that as the bill reaches your desk, that you sign the Emergency Employment Bill to support your manned car registration bill.
[1:49:43] We ask that you assist us now for the performance of our youth employment and recreation measures.
[1:49:49] Thank you very much.
[1:49:51] Also, for solar employment particularly, we have asked for the same number of job slots.
[1:49:57] The total dollars that we sought were less than the current year's program and there is under
[1:50:14] active consideration of study right now a request for a supplemental that would increase the total now available along the general line you mentioned with respect to recreation and other additional items and the reason and the decision will be reached in time so that we would
[1:50:33] As you would know, the summer program is trying to implement and do something about it.
[1:50:41] The reason the budget has a lowered amount, although we're still moving to the same number of jobs losses.
[1:50:50] When the budget was made up in September, October, November of last year, why the unemployment figures in many of the city areas were giving some rather hopeful downward signs.
[1:51:03] hopeful at that time that a smaller amount of money might be possible to use to carry through the whole summer program.
[1:51:14] The importance of it is fully appreciated that we have actively taken consideration now as a supplemental which will have the effect of improving and increasing the current summer program and doing it in time for application this summer.
[1:51:30] Well, I appreciate that.
[1:51:31] The sooner the better, so that it doesn't matter if you pay us.
[1:51:34] All we ask for is we cannot implement it.
[1:51:35] There are frustrated kids waiting in line.
[1:51:37] I don't know if anybody has any doubt that the priority of unemployment and curing it is in these immediate areas of the summer.
[1:51:43] I think that's fully appreciated.
[1:51:44] It's a very high priority.
[1:51:54] What's going to be given, you cut it back in weeks and weeks, it is effective in 20% 50 times.
[1:51:58] Cut it back, even if you leave the numbers the same, you're careful about the effects.
[1:52:02] And it was very, very good.
[1:52:04] It's been very bad for me since the end of the year.
[1:52:06] The process is under review.
[1:52:08] Here, Chris, at the time of our previous interview, this is like a great deal of trouble.
[1:52:12] I don't want to say what the facts are.
[1:52:13] I don't want to say what the facts are.
[1:52:15] I don't want to say what the facts are.
[1:52:22] We talked about many an inserted effort to increase the participation of the private sector in providing jobs to the slots.
[1:52:30] Now, I suppose that the general unemployment conditions in the state of Mississippi are unfeasible to a great extent.
[1:52:38] But I would like to know how you evaluate the reception of the out-of-election organizations that are going to use the left to do the right assistance to people in the community.
[1:52:49] So I'm dropping a letter on that.
[1:52:51] I appreciate it.
[1:52:51] Very distant.
[1:52:52] Why was the...
[1:53:04] Actually, it wasn't in Stokes.
[1:53:06] It was a proposal to spread out the employment by calling for the same number of job slots that Brian's working for us, but funding that at a lower federal level than if there was any fee on the part of any individual or county that they wanted a longer employment.
[1:53:23] That would be a local decision which they could make.
[1:53:27] There was no required increase of local shares in that.
[1:53:31] We were also .
[1:53:31] Well, that would have been the effect if you wanted to maintain precisely the same
[1:53:40] a number of hours and lengths of employment, it would have been necessary to put in a larger local care to do that.
[1:53:49] There wasn't a requirement for that feedback, but that was to be left to local decision.
[1:53:53] But under the supplemental passage, that's how I understand it.
[1:53:58] That's right.
[1:53:59] We would be expanding the entire program and it would be a larger program than the current year with the federal funding underway.
[1:54:08] Perhaps I say that review is very intensive and it's underway right at this point.
[1:54:14] I'd like to comment on the importance of that.
[1:54:17] When the states last year arrived in this very room, we all had to spend 50 million to start a program for the additional transportation funding.
[1:54:28] In our community, I think this is typical of most of the cities, which with the unemployment rate going up, the employment factor is really getting to be less important in relation to the employment.
[1:54:36] And we use a ton of programs that get into the job spot itself.
[1:54:38] And I say that advising you, because now all the other activities have not been able to do this by their commitments.
[1:54:42] And we're not going to get in our communities, and we're going to keep ourselves where we are.
[1:54:46] We may have to make sure that each spot
[1:54:58] We may force the military or someone else to expand their program.
[1:55:02] So what we need immediately, and what has been believed and has been eliminated from the program, as I understand it so far, has been the summer transportation money and the other funds that were available from the stationary program to pick it up from that supply.
[1:55:17] And I think the President made a wise decision last year to talk about those $250 million.
[1:55:21] And I think it bails out of a real bad summer.
[1:55:24] And I would hope that by the 15th of April or sometime around that point, so we can start to plan it.
[1:55:29] If we would have it, it would be better to plan this summer's program on that basis.
[1:55:36] What the review that we're undertaking now is touching on is both the transportation and recreation funds as well as the expansion of the entire program.
[1:55:44] Next we have Mayor D'Alessandro who has a message for the members of the public.
[1:55:49] We can talk about the concern of layers of transportation and mass transit funds.
[1:56:05] Under the leadership of Mr. Craig's U.R.
[1:56:07] demonstration, I think one of the most meaningful pieces of legislation is the Pass the Necessary Cash Transportation Systems Act of 1970.
[1:56:18] And as you know, as a result of that act, $3.1 billion was made available to 80 local communities to enforce their transit systems.
[1:56:28] One of the difficulties that I'm always experiencing in my own public life is understanding finance people.
[1:56:35] So I'd like to talk a little bit with Mr. Weinberg on your terminology of restraints spending, outlaying, and debt stealing as we go through the past transit bills.
[1:56:49] It seems to me, by example, that's exactly where we're at.
[1:56:55] That authorized $3.1 billion.
[1:56:56] The Congress approved an appropriation of $600 billion.
[1:57:04] did not approve extending the lease beyond $214 million per year until January 2nd.
[1:57:12] And during the first six months of that fiscal year, we had to follow their spending rate release.
[1:57:21] And that brought us out of $130 for the first six months, and we stayed with it another $150 million for the second six months.
[1:57:32] Bill 271A.
[1:57:32] 214.
[1:57:33] How do you identify that legislation?
[1:57:36] It's an appropriation bill from National Transparency.
[1:57:38] It was a limitation put on the authorization for spending in the House of Ways and Means Committee.
[1:57:46] Okay, now this is the exact thing I'm trying to make, Mr. President.
[1:57:51] Those tests work once throughout the country.
[1:58:00] and every metropolitan area begins to prepare and accelerate their approach to participate in this mass transport.
[1:58:10] And as a result, $2.2 billion worth of requests are now pending in the Air and Mass Transportation Administration in the pipeline.
[1:58:20] Now, the case that I have, and that's why I am a successful pilot, is that for the $100 million
[1:58:29] was placed in fiscal 71 by the office of the management office.
[1:58:36] I mean, you have a quick silhouette, yes, is that right?
[1:58:40] July of 71, but it was for actual capital grants.
[1:58:43] The other aspect, one for planning, one for, I think, standing short for some of the development here in Washington, D.C.
[1:58:53] So the point I'm trying to make is that if you only have $271 million in capital grants and best grants, and then you look at the previous administration and the allocations that they made, and they were boldly inadequate, and that's what Fox has been passing these last 10 years in.
[1:59:14] What we're doing is
[1:59:15] We have all these applications for mass transit in the pipeline, but the only amount of money that we have available to us is $271,000.
[1:59:24] And I would like to see the President present to the President in real great existence in seven days.
[1:59:35] It was all tied up with the SSP financing because they tied it up in the same bill.
[1:59:41] As I say, it wasn't until January 2nd.
[2:00:01] that we received the authority to release $300 million more than we had.
[2:00:05] We are in the process of releasing all of that.
[2:00:10] In June 71, the balance in the three months that was just compared to that, even though .
[2:00:15] But in 72, we have $600 million, and we have asked Congress to give it to the authority to release that immediately.
[2:00:23] And assuming that's received, we will start considering how to type on here.
[2:00:28] We can't do it in the absence of congressional approval from Paul.
[2:00:33] The question is approved by the Congress and we don't want to be operating on the same page.
[2:00:40] That's the decision that we had to ask for.
[2:00:44] Yes.
[2:00:45] No, it's not.
[2:00:46] It's not.
[2:00:46] No, it's not.
[2:00:48] It's not.
[2:00:49] Yes, that's what I thought.
[2:00:51] That's what it is.
[2:00:52] It's contract authorization.
[2:00:54] But we can't run it off.
[2:00:58] The pressure is the Congress says your spending rates, your contract authorization rate cannot exceed
[2:01:05] $214 million in a year.
[2:01:07] That's what they told us in September and October.
[2:01:10] On January 2nd, they changed that and let us go through the balance of the fiscal year, which we are now doing.
[2:01:17] We will spend all of these mass transit funds that are available on the energy donation.
[2:01:23] Mr. Vice President, if I understand you correctly, what you're saying is that as a result of the passage of the Mass Transit Assistance Act, Congress only approved
[2:01:43] $217 million dollars under that act.
[2:01:46] Initially.
[2:01:47] Yes, sir.
[2:01:47] Up until January.
[2:01:48] Up until January.
[2:01:49] Stand out.
[2:01:50] They had passed another appropriation of 300 things.
[2:01:54] That's right.
[2:01:54] That's why immediately released.
[2:01:55] That's right.
[2:01:56] And then you have incorporated 600 things.
[2:01:58] Right.
[2:02:00] And we will probably, probably have to, because of the timeline out here, because there's so few months left in the fiscal year, we will probably let some of the 71,000 schools go in addition to the 600,000, so more than 600 will probably go out in 700.
[2:02:21] and assuming that's received, we will start considering how to type one.
[2:02:28] You're absolutely correct, but we can't do it in the absence of congressional approval from the following.
[2:02:37] The question is approved by the Congress, and we don't want to be operating on the same page.
[2:02:45] That's the decision we have to make.
[2:02:47] Yes?
[2:02:48] Yes, that's what it is.
[2:02:50] It's contract authorization.
[2:02:52] But we can't let it out.
[2:02:54] The pressure is the Congress says your spending rates, your contract authorization rate cannot exceed
[2:03:04] $214 million in a year.
[2:03:06] That's what they told us in September and October.
[2:03:09] On January 2nd, they changed that and let us go for the balance of the fiscal year, which we are now doing.
[2:03:16] We will spend all of these mass drafts and funds that are available on P&G Unleashed.
[2:03:23] in the balance of 71.
[2:03:25] And so we have asked for 600 million and we've asked for it a few months ago.
[2:03:30] And I hope Congress will give it to you.
[2:03:32] Mr. Vice President, if I understand you correctly, what you're saying is that as it involves the passage of the Mass Transit Assistance Act, that Congress will only approve
[2:03:42] $217 million under that act.
[2:03:44] Initially, yes, sir.
[2:03:46] Up until January.
[2:03:48] Up until January.
[2:03:49] Stand out.
[2:03:49] There's another appropriation of $300 million.
[2:03:53] That's right.
[2:03:53] That's your immediate release.
[2:03:55] That's right.
[2:03:55] And then you have incorporated $600 million.
[2:03:57] Right.
[2:03:59] And we will probably have to, because of the timeline up here, because there's so few lines left in the fiscal year, we will probably let some of the 71 signs go in addition to the 600.
[2:04:11] And in 72, so more than 600 will probably go out in 72.
[2:04:14] We'll build small line bases up.
[2:04:16] The last time I went out and discussed this,
[2:04:23] Mr. Mayor, let's see if you can give us a report on the Mayor's meeting with the Majority Leader, Paul Robinson, and Speaker Alford.
[2:04:34] Well, Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, the President of the Conference, Mr. Mayor,
[2:04:45] Last December in Atlanta, I appointed a legislative action committee to the U.S. Congress of Mayors.
[2:04:52] I was joined by the League of Cities at that time, consisting of 16 cities and mayors of those cities, which was designed to be an action group to lobby for their programs.
[2:05:06] The city was born in frustration because
[2:05:11] of the general view that the Paris law should have never been heard from adequately in the country.
[2:05:18] because of their desperate struggle to survive, it really had to be done.
[2:05:19] And that was the basis for the meeting with the Congress, first with the majority, and then after that with the majority, and the leadership level, and also a private meeting yesterday with the both majority and chairman and the second minority member of the Ways and Means Committee of the House.
[2:05:45] The Action Committee has moved around the country.
[2:05:48] We have visited two cities, and now twice in Washington.
[2:05:53] We go to North New Jersey next in order to focus on the urban problems that we have in general.
[2:06:01] I think that in my 14 years of federal and municipal service, the most intense recollections I have of this room were in the process of hammering out the Kerner Commission report
[2:06:12] That was in 1967, and they were on the heels of 25 American cities almost burning to the ground.
[2:06:20] And that was, of course, not really a marginal plan for the cities, which were in such unbelievable, desperate straits.
[2:06:29] All kinds of things were mentioned that had to do with various emergencies, especially short-range and long-range programs, in order to address the root problems that existed in these cities, which were gradually strengthening both from the point of view of their social amenities, the polarization that existed within them, the tensions,
[2:06:53] As far as the ordinary business of the quality of life and basic services, a small portion of that report had to do with just a basic question of ongoing services, police, fire, sanitation, legal teaching, etc.
[2:07:05] None of the subject of all the special things that were needed in order to correct all of the dead cases of inaction that we've had in the past.
[2:07:18] Residence sharing is a very key thing on the one point it has to do with the disability of these cities to keep going on basic services.
[2:07:28] Residence sharing is designed to hopefully handle the pure result of laying off police, fire and sanitation, nurses and hospitals, school teachers and the rest.
[2:07:40] basic stuff that people over the decades in this country assumed would go on, which are no longer going on.
[2:07:50] So we have been concentrating on revenue sharing as a device in order just to keep these things afloat.
[2:07:57] And that doesn't address itself to all these other areas of desperate crisis in these cities designed to cure the disease.
[2:08:05] And the legislative action committed
[2:08:08] is focusing on all of these areas.
[2:08:11] You see, web sharing is one tool, a botanic tool that will strike at the top of how do we teach within our own neighborhoods and in our own communities or have returned to us money that are generated there and sent to Washington.
[2:08:26] All of us knowing that the most part of this is going to be with a legal tax base, which is the property tax, although some states have loaded on various other forms.
[2:08:35] And as Mayor DeSoto of Atlanta points out, he's taxed everything that moves and doesn't move.
[2:08:40] And if it moves again, they tax it again.
[2:08:42] We've all done that.
[2:08:44] All of us have doubled, tripled, doubled, raised up, taxed everything.
[2:08:50] So this actual committee is depressing for a $10 billion level on revenue sharing to stay afloat.
[2:08:57] Now that's not going to solve all the problems.
[2:08:59] If I don't say to New York that the $5 billion that's asked for went through, undiminished by any other committee that conceivably would take place, $5 billion if it went through the Congress, according to our calculations, according to our calculations, it would affect our budget by about 2%.
[2:09:16] That's important, that 2%.
[2:09:19] But that's only a tiny portion of the problem that besets us.
[2:09:23] The Action Committee has focused our, not on all the things that trouble us, but on two ones, because being practical politicians, we know the importance of addressing ourselves in the Congress and in the executive branch to a few specifics.
[2:09:40] It does have to do with revenue sharing at a 10-day general level.
[2:09:44] It has to do with the release spots that have been appropriated by the Congress better upon release.
[2:09:50] It has to do with summer programs because all of us are worried
[2:09:54] about the future.
[2:09:55] It has to do with matching the hearts.
[2:09:58] We can't live with it because we no longer have the resources to do it.
[2:10:02] And the effect, of course, of the technology, of course, of matching your heart.
[2:10:06] Try to name a city hall and see a storm sometime if you want to see the resentment.
[2:10:11] Because if you come back on programs that you know have some beneficial effect, particularly in terms of unemployment, in our report,
[2:10:23] We're concerned about direct funding, and we aren't even direct funding the cities, because all the cities north and south, east and west, are diversity-led states, and for the most part, are suburban-minded.
[2:10:37] And there's no difference between any of us on this.
[2:10:40] And I have the world's most progressive government, but even he is going to be frustrated by those political pressures that exist.
[2:10:46] So we will continue to vote for direct funding for these cities in order to make sure that the action is really targeted at where the problem really is, which is on the streets.
[2:10:58] We're pushing for public service employment directly because we need the employment and we desperately need the public service to make up for shortages.
[2:11:06] As we've had in each of these cities, about three, three, three meetings a week, and two every week, and to come back because of the, uh, the relative pressures that are there.
[2:11:16] Uh, you need everything that you can get, and this is an area that we think is desperately needed, particularly at this time.
[2:11:23] So, the art program is to continue to move in this direction.
[2:11:31] In respect of our meetings in the Congress, we had good hearings.
[2:11:37] We visited on two occasions with the Speaker and the Majority Leader and the Majority Whip.
[2:11:46] They listened to us, promised nothing, except
[2:11:51] fair attention to the pleas that we made for revenue sharing and for other urban programs and for such pressure as they would exert for full funding.
[2:12:02] And our discussions with the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and the Ranking Minority Member, John Burns,
[2:12:12] full and complete and totally hand-produced without the promise of performance.
[2:12:20] We are going to thank you in every possible way in a revolutionary effort.
[2:12:24] We're going to cut off the ending as much as we can because we think it's desperately needed to be meaningful and we also will continue
[2:12:34] in groups wherever possible to testify, both in the Senate and the House, on a whole number and a whole range of urban programs to press forward.
[2:12:45] We take the position that revenue sharing, important as that is, cannot be thought of as a substitute
[2:12:52] with the obligation that the Congress has to address itself with the various priority concerns of the country, whether it's the problem of the poor, or hospitals and health, or mass transit, or what have you.
[2:13:08] We've been in the business long enough.
[2:13:10] It's astonishing to me that I find myself, at least in this collection of bears here, the third senior, which is unbelievable.
[2:13:19] Maybe some idea of the turnover in this business.
[2:13:22] But we have to remain sufficiently optimistic by continuing to fight.
[2:13:29] We don't want to leave here in this room a sense of the urgency of the problem.
[2:13:34] There is too much polarization.
[2:13:37] There is much, too much tension.
[2:13:39] And when the competition for resources and for services in our cities gets as intense as they are, people demanding more and, in fact, receiving less because of the financial pressures under which we live.
[2:13:55] then you see that escalation of problems that become very explosive.
[2:13:59] And we have no choice but to carry our case as widely as we can to the country and talk to anybody who listens to us.
[2:14:09] For that reason, we're very grateful to you for this session here today.
[2:14:18] Well, I, uh, I don't want to stress too much.
[2:14:21] I appreciate it.
[2:14:23] You're welcome.
[2:14:24] I don't want your presence, but you're tender.
[2:14:27] And, uh...
[2:14:29] I wish, as a matter of fact, that they guess tomorrow's proposal is going to make.
[2:14:34] We have set the sun, as you, and I'm sure you can tell from what happens to Senator Woodham.
[2:14:39] I want you all to know that Woodham, here on my agency, has a lot in their hands.
[2:14:43] Of course, to the extent that Mr. Romney has, some of your problems have been picked up.
[2:14:46] If you're $10 older than you're going to get, you're going to have to act with will.
[2:14:59] that it's going to be due to some of the restrictions that we have.
[2:15:03] You see, I believe, and I never understand this, I ask a bunch of things, and I used to sit in the House and the Senate, and the vice president and the council president had a bunch of budgets, and they're trying to get it all through, but all you do is, you know, some fucking directory, which makes you, you know, spend more than...
[2:15:23] I expected that he wouldn't appear for a while.
[2:15:25] Now, can I say three or four things with regard to the proposals made?
[2:15:45] First, as Mayor Lindsey pointed out, there isn't any question that the concerns you have are much broader than simply Bill putting it in her neck.
[2:15:56] Sure, you need more money.
[2:15:59] You need more revenue to share both, and I would emphasize so strongly, both general revenue to share and special revenue to share.
[2:16:07] Because it's a boost in that, too.
[2:16:08] No city is going to get any less.
[2:16:11] All we're going to get is some more.
[2:16:14] But more important, under the special revenue sharing, it means that decisions can be made in your offices, in the city hall, with regard to how you want to spend this money, and so on and so on.
[2:16:26] But I realize that that gets money part of the problem.
[2:16:30] And as John and Sue were saying, there are so many other problems, some of which we haven't discussed, and some of which we've never discussed.
[2:16:39] Let me say that I realize that at the national level, any things we do can come into trouble or can come in.
[2:16:48] We trust that in our conduct of national affairs, we don't make your problems worse.
[2:16:56] For whatever it is worth, we do know that
[2:17:00] The whole area, even though it is not a city problem, it is a mayor's issue, a mayor's race, the area for policies that are very concerning.
[2:17:11] At last, we are at a decision where we see, we can see now the end of an involvement of a very long, very difficult floor.
[2:17:22] That doesn't mean it's going to solve the problems of the cities.
[2:17:25] It simply means it isn't going to add to the problems of the cities.
[2:17:28] I think all of you will agree that that is the case.
[2:17:33] Let's take the economy, generally.
[2:17:35] We're working on this economy.
[2:17:36] We're active in this country.
[2:17:38] That's why this budget
[2:17:40] To the great dismay of some of my colleagues in the House and the Senate, who think this is, say that any kind of deficit spending is wrong, my view is that it's always been one that whenever an economy is producing in less than full capacity, you must have a deficit when the economy produces it.
[2:18:04] full capacities that only then, if you have a surplus, you should have one.
[2:18:10] But when the economy is at full, at less full capacity, what we're trying to do now, we're not only running what we call a full employment budget, which we know means a budget
[2:18:23] at an amount which the tax system would produce if we were to hold employment.
[2:18:28] That's the only restraint that we have, is what the tax system would produce if we were to hold employment.
[2:18:36] Not only are we doing that, but we are taking other actions in terms of monetary policy and others that we believe
[2:18:47] are going to move the economy in the direction that you want it to move.
[2:18:52] If you talk about your problems, the problems of employment, I know in cities, particularly in core sections of cities, and in minority sections, are going to be there regardless of what employment is, but they can become less.
[2:19:09] In other words, if there are jobs, jobs in that private sector, like a nurse, city mayor, or a nurse,
[2:19:17] With these things in mind then, I think that I can safely say at the present time that we're in a year, right?
[2:19:28] Not always on a straight path, because our economy being a free economy never moves in a certain way.
[2:19:35] There's a jiggle now and then.
[2:19:36] But we are moving into a good year economically and into a very good year economically in the next year.
[2:19:41] This is the right direction.
[2:19:45] And we trust that we'll be paid at the same time that the rate of inflation and the salaries change.
[2:19:54] We believe our policies are moving in that direction.
[2:19:59] We trust, incidentally, speaking of John Lindsey sitting at the, maybe the stock market tells us something, Mr. Heather H., the former head of the American Stock Exchange, and he says he has a theory that the stock market does not only forecast but tends to pull the economy a bit.
[2:20:16] Well, it would be interesting to know whether that happens.
[2:20:19] As it may, I can say, fairly apart from
[2:20:23] That fact, that as we look at the general economic situation in which you really have to deal with, not in terms of talking to a lawyer, but in terms of the tone of the state, the movement is starting to be up.
[2:20:39] It is not going to be sideways or down, in our opinion, throughout 1971 and through 1972, strongly not.
[2:20:48] Now the other points I would make for these.
[2:20:50] First, with regard to revenue sharing, I did not make this presentation for the purpose of having an issue with the campaign.
[2:20:58] I want all of you to know, I know most of you are Democrats coming to Republicans.
[2:21:05] I want all of you to know that we presented this in a bipartisan spirit.
[2:21:09] We tried to sell it in a bipartisan spirit.
[2:21:12] We believe that this is an idea in whose kindness comes.
[2:21:16] It is null.
[2:21:17] You heard Whatler Keller this morning.
[2:21:18] He was for revenue sharing.
[2:21:20] Back in the late 60s, as we included in our first budget in 1969, we haven't found yet.
[2:21:28] Revenue sharing is something that we want action, not action.
[2:21:32] It is an all out high priority objective of this administration.
[2:21:36] We're working at all levels.
[2:21:38] We're working for general revenue sharing.
[2:21:39] We're working for special revenue sharing.
[2:21:43] I appreciated the fact that Mayor Tate and you indicated the support generally of the mayors for general revenue sharing.
[2:21:48] I appreciated the fact that at least in some segments of the special revenue sharing, there seems to be general support.
[2:21:55] We would hope that you would consider that and we could have your support there too.
[2:22:00] For the reason that I alluded to a moment ago.
[2:22:04] Special revenue sharing, and I agree with Mayor Lugar, it's a bad name.
[2:22:08] You must find a better way to project it.
[2:22:12] Special revenue sharing does something that is enormously important to you as local officials, mayors of big cities and some smaller cities.
[2:22:25] And that is that it makes
[2:22:30] your jobs and your decisions and the decisions of those that you bring into your administrations more meaningful because the decision has to in six great broad categories that will be made.
[2:22:43] Because rather than being made by us in Washington, it will be made by you and you will have as much or more money than you presently have in which you spread it around.
[2:22:54] This we think is enormously important.
[2:22:56] It's important because, and without getting my little civic speech here, it's important because I believe that we not only have to deal with the financial crisis in the cities, with the racial crisis in the cities, with the crisis of elimination and re-admiring all the others that we've heard about, but we've got to deal with the fact that government in the cities, like government in Washington,
[2:23:27] We revitalize.
[2:23:28] The only way you're going to revitalize them, the only way you're going to get better people in the government is to give them more responsible things to do.
[2:23:36] Now, we just pass out money.
[2:23:39] You could work out a scheme where the federal government would pick up the check for welfare, pick up the check for this and that and the other thing, pass out the money down through the cities and the states and so forth.
[2:23:49] But we're governors, county officials, city officials.
[2:23:53] or pass out money or administer and the rest, that's one thing.
[2:23:57] But where they are making decisions about the future of their city and of their state, that's something very different and very, very important.
[2:24:07] It is very important that it be done, I think, with better governments.
[2:24:10] I think it will bring better people in.
[2:24:12] It will make certain that your jobs in terms of getting people into your administrations
[2:24:18] I know this is one of the hardest things to do as it is with us.
[2:24:21] It will make it seem to us not as difficult as it is in the present time.
[2:24:26] The final thing I'd like to say is, and I know this is a very great thing to say, but a long, long ago, I remarked again where we're standing in the face of this.
[2:24:40] And I remember that the first time I met with mayors two years ago, half of those mayors are not here now.
[2:24:50] Some, incidentally, the ones that are not here, most of them weren't defeated.
[2:24:56] They just quit.
[2:24:58] Now, let's look at that situation from just a moment.
[2:25:03] Why?
[2:25:03] One, actually the job is enormously difficult.
[2:25:07] Two, however,
[2:25:09] The fact that I had mentioned, if you have a government, or any other responsibility, where you can't really do anything about it, where you know that your decisions really don't matter, that what really matters is what somebody else does, that you're really just an alcoholic, an arid boy, or kind of what you call that, or maybe a little higher than that, a clerk, then...
[2:25:38] Why say that?
[2:25:40] And particularly why say that when you face these enormous problems of walking down the streets of those cities and coming right up against them?
[2:25:49] I know how you must have probably must run into when you cut back on garbage collection, or when you cut down back on streets, or when you cut back on even police and fire protection, whatever the case might be.
[2:26:02] Because of your right smack dab opportunity.
[2:26:06] And this is the last point I would like to make, and it's made with very great feeling.
[2:26:14] It is often said that whoever sits in this chair, the chair I'm in, has the hardest job in the world.
[2:26:22] Actually, it would be my tendency to agree with that.
[2:26:28] I'm not sure that's the case.
[2:26:31] I would actually say that probably you have the hardest jobs in the world.
[2:26:36] You have the hardest jobs in the world because you are dealing directly with the problems of people you come into confrontation with day after day.
[2:26:46] You're out there, well, somewhat like the men in the front lines, right there on the barricades, so to speak.
[2:26:58] And consequently, day after day, you have to make those tough, hard decisions.
[2:27:04] human relations, and not simply discussing problems in others that we discuss at this high level under the summit.
[2:27:10] In other words, we're here at the summit of government, and I believe that sometimes the job is hard, but I know that the jobs that you have out there in the city to deal with people, that it is perhaps at times, many of them will be more difficult, many of them will be more wary.
[2:27:26] I certainly want to close by saying we don't want to make your jobs any higher, harder.
[2:27:30] We're doing the very best we can on financial issues, on community support policies, issues, investment policies, so that this country, that it can be a cooler country, a tighter country, a country perhaps brought together more effectively than it has in the past.
[2:27:48] For the same token, we want to help you all meet your financial problems.
[2:27:53] And, in addition, we want you to know that in this administration, not because it's a Republican administration, but because it's an administration that's simply as good as anybody, any administration should be.
[2:28:05] In all the people in this country, most of the people in this country have to live in cities.
[2:28:11] We are quietly interested in what you are doing.
[2:28:14] We want to help, and we want to help not only financially, but we are interested in your concern.
[2:28:20] We want you to present them to us where we can.
[2:28:24] We will give you every possible assistance.
[2:28:26] You've probably heard that kind of speech before, various people, and sometimes I suppose you come right up to them, well, with a new one, but you can do right today.
[2:28:38] I can't tell you what they expect to say.
[2:28:40] You have our all-out support on revenue sharing, general revenue sharing, and pressure on insurance.
[2:28:46] You have our concerns on the various other problems that you can raise, and perhaps as much as anything else.
[2:28:54] It just means there's one politician to another group of politicians.
[2:28:58] You have here in this office someone who appreciates what you're doing.
[2:29:02] You've got tough jobs.
[2:29:03] Real tough jobs.
[2:29:05] We know them.
[2:29:06] And I just don't want to see the attrition of mayors.
[2:29:09] I'm not speaking of the elections.
[2:29:12] I'm speaking to the fact that your jobs are tough.
[2:29:15] You're making a very great sacrifice in giving a country this kind of leadership.
[2:29:21] And we want to do everything we can to give you the assistance that you deserve as mayors and citizens of this country.
[2:29:29] So with that, we will finish our session.
[2:29:33] I've got to give you a little something for all your time here.
[2:29:36] And I understand that what we have today is something you may have.
[2:29:47] At least if you had your, what do you call it, your richest equipment.
[2:29:52] Whatever it is, I'll report it.
[2:29:53] Lisa's presidential complex.
[2:29:54] That's another day that I have my name on it so you can all wear it.
[2:30:02] It's for the ladies.
[2:30:03] We have a little presidential boat.
[2:30:05] I'm glad you had one.
[2:30:06] You did another one for yourself.
[2:30:08] I got a little cranky decision.
[2:30:10] Yeah, but either one counts for the president.
[2:30:12] Well, I got a trip.
[2:30:14] Either a bus or a hot tub.
[2:30:15] Either a bus or a hot tub.
[2:30:16] Either a bus or a hot tub.
[2:30:17] Either a bus or a hot tub.
[2:30:19] Either a bus or a hot tub.
[2:30:20] Either a bus or a hot tub.
[2:30:22] Either a bus or a hot tub.
[2:30:23] Either a bus or a hot tub.
[2:30:24] Either a bus or a hot tub.
[2:30:26] Either a bus or a hot tub.
[2:30:30] Thank you very much.
[2:30:31] Now go to the school center.
[2:30:32] Thank you.