On February 6, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon and Republican Congressional leaders, including Hugh Scott, Robert P. Griffin, Wallace F. Bennett, William E. Brock, III, John G. Tower, Gerald R. Ford, Leslie C. Arends, John B. Anderson, Samuel L. Devine, Barber B. Conable, Jr., Robert C. ("Bob") Wilson, George H. W. Bush, Roy L. Ash, John D. Ehrlichman, William E. Timmons, Richard K. Cook, Thomas C. Korologos, Ronald L. Ziegler, and Kenneth R. Cole, Jr., met in the Cabinet Room of the White House at an unknown time between 9:35 am and 11:16 am. The Cabinet Room taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 112-003 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
8th of February, which is very, very, very good.
We'll come back Wednesday morning for what date?
8th of February, yes.
All of us next week.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Well, uh, it gets a little more tricky, that's all.
I had an interview with her.
Oh, good.
I'm glad you did.
Go ahead.
Well, that's what we do.
We negotiate a week, uh, week off, week off, week off, week off, week off, week off, week off, week off, week off, week off, week off, week off, week off.
Uh, I know you may have to be in the West Coast.
Uh, I'm not going to be in the West Coast.
I'm going to be in the West Coast.
I'm going to be in the West Coast.
I'm going to be in the West Coast.
I'm going to be in the West Coast.
I'm going to be in the West Coast.
I'm going to be in the West Coast.
uh, this week, uh, that Weinberg, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,
started to recess Thursday, 98, the 2nd of January, and we come back on Monday, the 19th, and we have another business.
On the 19th, that's Washington's birthday.
We would simply read the message, prepare our address, and there would be no business on Monday.
But that week, George Payton, the appropriations people here, had a hit debate springing up
one or both of the unpassed appropriation bills or another continuing resolution.
I suspect the latter.
But I would agree with you that
We will be seeing, the first one will be seen, of these efforts to get the horseshoes to hand money to the one who is bringing up Wednesday as the week's bill.
Coming up tomorrow, John Anderson has to go up for a Rules Committee meeting this morning sometime.
They're going to get a rule, and they'll bring it up tomorrow.
They'll pass it.
Although we got surprisingly good, in some respects, Republican support in the committee.
We got seven Republicans to sign a minority view.
No, seven to vote against the bill.
Four tried to amend it, to cut it down from 225 to 140 million.
And they signed a minority view to make that change.
three or four others signed a minority view against the bill as a whole.
We got one Democrat, Tom Coley of Washington.
We both know he didn't sign any minority views.
This is an interesting aspect, however.
Tom Coley is allegedly the agricultural spokesman for the Democratic study group.
If that's true, we might get
some Democrat liberal big city people to vote with us.
They've always said that.
On the other hand, they may be playing a little game here with the more conservative Democrats and say, we're gonna vote against your agricultural subsidy.
Unless you guarantee that you'll support us in trying to override the president on OEO, on housing, etc.
It's a little early to, I think, determine whether this is gainfully explained or whether it's sincere.
What we can do is, in order to get back to this meeting, we'll have these meetings of the leaders, and I've decided the best time to have them is 9.30.
And we will turn up at 11, so that you can go up.
That's when you have the briefing.
It's the best time to get the press.
So we'll run from 9.30 to 11.
That also gives everybody a chance to get back up to the car, to the house.
I think that's better than the 8 o'clock thing.
We're going to try that for a while anyway.
I think if you run past them so that you can come right out and get with them, it's better than dragging along.
Mr. President, one question I would like to ask.
If the House and Senate pass this REAP bill, for example, would you be so?
Our fellows, I think, would like to know if we can get more votes if we're going to pass.
And I think this is only the first of several that are bound to be coming up.
John, do you have anything to listen to?
Sure, John.
And the list that we're passing out this morning, I think, Bill, relates to the METOs from last time.
That's correct.
But we are passing the signal on the street thing as well.
And it will be if you get there.
And so I think anybody who has to be told this 11 that we're going to give you this morning, plus...
Uh, the back one, we'll be sending you others as the issues come up.
I might go in and hit the OMB compromise.
For instance, we have a veto in Miami.
We're giving out the lists and the bills to those folks.
They're not even going to know what to do.
So, sometimes they're going to do whatever.
The ones that are passing out this morning are basically the ones with the pocket vetoes.
And they owe us nearly $7 billion over the budget.
I mean, $7 billion over three years.
So it's not a tiny sum.
It's a pretty good thing.
So the question is, you want to raise taxes by $7 billion, or do you want to leave them free?
You have a fact that wouldn't be confirmation, huh?
No.
No, that's against the law.
It's not to do with the current situation.
What they're doing is laying the groundwork.
They're in trouble for the first Democratic president's first appointment on the election.
They want the right to serve so they can go down to the general house and make that happen.
That's what we're doing.
I'm only buying what I have told I want to do.
Let me say, before Roy actually was on, I heard that it's a very difficult person to do, to be a buyer of your movies, despite being the President of the Congress.
But first of all, people like
Well, unless you and Jerry and some of us have been wrong, it's not new.
In fact, the Republicans used to give Hill a comment.
Anyway, the other point is that with our, as Roy actually said, with our no tax pledge,
We really have on the line here either to take this very strongly in my position with regard to the vote, with regard to the mandatory section of the legislation, and the budget for the Supreme Court, or we have to break that pledge.
So it's a pretty clear issue that we want to attend to.
If any congressman or senator wants to be responsible and say,
Again, I believe that we ought to step more in the wrong direction.
We ought to step more in the right direction.
But if he does, then either he's got the words on his mind, and there's only one place he's going to step more in fact, or in place.
Or, and I'll cover this, but I think it's a rather creepy idea that's going to happen.
I say, what we're going to get out of it is just having the economy grow more.
I'd like to point out that the budget for 1974 is $80 billion above the budget for 2015 or 1973.
Where in the hell did that come from?
From the economic growth that an enormous space that doesn't exist right now.
One part is the real deficit, as you know, is still there, the action deficit.
By 75, we hope to have one of the three Republicans to say, well, we can balance really well.
Oh, my, don't be taken in by the idea.
It's a foreign argument, totally.
And that we don't.
And that we expect more.
And that all we have to do is push the economy to produce more.
We're a very, very razor's edge in a position right now.
If this economy is gassed up any more than it is, you're going to have the dangest inflation of the whole bus cycle here.
So that's the problem.
You're already out of the back.
We're at 6.5% last year, which is maximum.
This year, the rate of economic growth has got to come down to 4, or we will be in the whole bus cycle.
Right?
Would you agree with us, sir?
Now, they're already walking on tremendous growth.
The revenues have to be pointing to the bulk of them.
But let me say that that doesn't have that growth barrier.
That's all taken into account in our 250 number and our 268 number.
We spent that money.
So my point is, don't let anybody get off the hook and you're letting them lay speeches on the ground.
Well, look here, there's an easy way out.
We can spend more and more.
Maybe it'll come out of the economy growth.
There's only one way out, and it's raise taxes or...
They're responsible for inflation.
Great.
Democrats are going to say, you can raise taxes on the rich.
You can reform taxes.
You don't need to raise them.
So I think it would be very helpful if the Treasury would update the material which would show us how little money can be raised by fiddling with wallets of all new ex-survivors of Germany.
Yes, sir.
Thank you.
You know, that's a completely phony one.
I mean, if we were to confiscate, we all know that if we confiscate all of those earnings, we're earning over $50,000 a year.
But this was the position that was taken by the Congress yesterday before the way it means.
Wasn't it?
Yes, sir.
What they really are talking about is knocking off things like the deduction of your mortgage, you know, instead of the deduction of state real estate taxes.
Those are the things that will raise substantial additional sums.
You might not hear an awful lot of people that pay the fargo and pay the state from taxes.
And leaving those aside, and taking the old test notes that come up every time with the figures that give specific figures showing just how little would be right by these, this would be very helpful, because that argument is going to go over and over again.
I want those versions.
I want those versions.
I want the draperies that have given us the book.
is to get to all the members of the hospital for the event.
That's to be on one page.
And it's simple, understandable language.
Is that clear?
Yes, sir.
That's not that complicated, sir.
And that would show how many days that little song would run through.
People understand that.
There's a couple of things that you could put in a language that is seen in a way that the average guy would understand.
More importantly, keep with all.
There are your folks and there are your hardcore and the rest.
Would you get a little solace in Perkins and have a little peace out of him?
All right.
There's another item in that document for us to answer in the same fashion.
Proxima and Bennett were on television Sunday night shooting one night.
Proxima and Bennett must be lost, always.
All right.
All right.
I watched him like a little piece of him, but he was very much like a button.
I think he was arguing, well, she had a piece of him, but the front line was out, he was cutting it down, and he was asking, and he was asking.
It's way back.
He said he cut 10 billion out of the foreign assistance program.
Not just the program itself, but out of the defense fighting where there's so much foreign assistance.
And out of agriculture.
Now that just smells awfully badly without figures on it.
You never know the stories of the lives.
10 billion to be saved on the fence and all put into so-called human beings.
What we want to do this morning is to, first we are passing around some materials for you which have to do with basically the whole foreign policy issue which I was addressed previously.
But at the present time I would like Roy
Discuss the, uh, if I could, uh, give some examples to Roy, whatever clarity you have on your mind.
This will be Roy's first picture before the leaders, and he's had a baptism already by being thrilled by the appropriations to that instance.
So, let me tell you, if you can test out these guys, you're covered.
We had him follow the rest of last weekend.
Right.
We worked over a bit last weekend, and some of that has gone.
Some good education, too.
All right, I've noticed, President, that some of you have already been briefed on the basic principles of the budget.
They are the right ones and they are the wrong ones.
All right, now what we want to do is to give this opportunity again to be kind to those principles and learn some of the specifics.
You have some information and this is available to you that will give you some of the applications of those principles to particular programs.
I'm convinced that, not only on the general principles, but also on the specifics, that we can go to people on a very positive basis, and the purpose of the information you have is to allow you to do something, allow you to have a sense, in that background, positive statements on the actions that have been taken.
In each case, they deal with some of the, we just call them sacred cows,
Some of the programs that have over the years developed a fair amount of following, a fair amount of tracking, a fair amount of support, plus the fact sometimes that they could be worked out in order to get a real perception of what they are in contrast to the individualism sometimes.
We have to grow up about these programs.
Take 50 of the questions you may know this over a hundred items that were produced, terminated, and for very short reasons,
for which those were done.
I'll elaborate on any of those, if you wish, at the same time as I've picked out some that are as important as any of these have.
They're the ones that you're most likely to get questions about, or for that matter, ones that carry some of the biggest impact in the total actions being taken about the question.
Programs are being reduced or terminated or being done so for a number of reasons.
Some have served their purpose.
They've served their original purpose.
And as many programs go, they evolve into unintended purposes.
Pretty soon they are removed from the purposes originally set forth for them.
Others never did serve their purpose and hope that they would, but they never did.
And certainly as long as I'm in the future, there's not much reason to believe that they will.
And then there are a number of others that we can do better by other means.
We're now convinced by the way in which they operate.
Just because a program once exists, once exists, it doesn't mean that it's necessarily destined for perpetual life.
Some of these that we're talking about do go back many, many years, and I suppose are in some people's minds, so go through the system that they're assumed to be one that will go on forever.
Not just years go by.
A lot of these programs, I guess, do turn golden, at least to the recipients in their older years.
But that doesn't mean that they are filled with the goal for the taxpayers, the goal for everybody who has interest in the soundness of the government.
One of the elements that is discussed in the book, but just to make a few comments on it, is the dual burden program.
As you know, that is sort of a good burden.
$3.7 billion has been settled down since 1947.
But in the process of building that purpose, it along with other investments in hospital facilities have more than served their purpose so that today we're under the 73% occupancy of hospital beds.
Not only has this poor building allowed us to take care of these sometime in the future, I'm sure there are individual exceptions here and there, but nevertheless we fundamentally have plenty of hospital beds in this country.
And now that we have so many in many hospitals, this is one of the reasons that unit costs of hospital care are going up.
In effect, running a plant to take care of 100 beds and only getting revenue from 73.
So in the process of overshooting, we can adhere a program that has service purpose at one time, but at this time, probably will really add to our problems rather than help solve them.
And for that matter, the Medicare and Medicaid programs
the cost of depreciation are allowable for reimbursement, which in turn provides the basis for individual hospitals to draw new private money to finance the construction ahead of the year.
Roy, may I interrupt there just a minute?
Yes, sir.
You didn't knock off the loan guarantee program, did you?
No, sir.
So they still can borrow at a lesser rate for the loan guarantee?
Well, there are loans available on regular programs, but the special Hillburton,
low-interest rate program will no longer be available.
It's proposed for discontinuance.
Incidentally, I should say these are proposed for discontinuance in the budget.
And it is, of course, for the country to respond to that proposal.
But it is to deal with the special low-interest rate subsidy that has been available through Hill-Burton for those that had no alternative way of getting financing.
So that is a proposal, and clearly it's one that we think could be supported.
It is one that has served a purpose, and I'm sure that we wouldn't want to hold that one out as a bad program.
We'll hold it out as a good program, but it's served its purpose.
Joey, in the news story this morning, it's noted that the American Hospital Association concedes the case.
Can you edit that?
They say that there are spot shortages across the country, but that the overburden is no longer applicable to the need.
Another program that's very disturbing is impact aid.
Here, the reduction is down 50 aid to elementary and secondary schools.
when military personnel are living in their areas and making use of those things.
This aid has been going on at the rate of about $600 million a year.
It's being reduced by $120 million.
I'm happy to hear some response to it.
You would think that the whole world is coming to an end, but let's go to the perspective.
$45 billion is being spent across the country for elementary and secondary schools.
from all sources of revenue.
The amount that is now being reduced is 120 million, so that you can see that it's a small fraction of 1% of the total.
Why is it being reduced?
In the areas where it is in use.
There are many families, sure, military, in these cases getting higher and higher paid military, that live off base, live on public property, pay real estate taxes, pay sales taxes, and in fact contribute to all of those sorts of taxes that finance school systems.
But nonetheless, those school systems have been getting aid because of just the hit count of military personnel in their areas.
The theory here seems to be terribly sound and one that is very hard to attack and that is that those communities already raise their money from the very people that are occupying those schools just because they happen to go to work in a military establishment and in uniform rather than work elsewhere does not in any way bring about an equity that there should be special consideration given to those school systems.
Now the problem here is that it comes right to home on Calvary County, Fairfax, and St. George's County.
The beneficiaries are $26 million a year under
these programs.
That is, of course, not a problem, but nevertheless, in principle, seems sound, and clearly they have been unjustly enriched, let's say, by having not only the tax selection for all these people, but at the same time, the special contribution from the federal government.
Now, there will continue to be impact data available for those school systems,
serving children of military personnel that live on base, in effect, who did not pay the real estate taxes that they probably do pay, some of the sales taxes, because we don't buy everything.
It's a very secretive point that anybody who lives on a base doesn't pay a real estate tax, and a real estate tax is a major source for financing education.
really will be provided for those.
It's when somebody that's off the base, which is the great huge majority, they do take real estate taxes.
And why should they then bear the same burden as everybody else?
And as I said on that story, I've often said I haven't found any congressman or senator that ran on the platform of raising taxes.
I haven't found many communities that are not asking for, at the present time,
federal facilities.
So this idea that it's a great burden, and it used to be in the war, so this feeling is very, very, very crazy.
But it's tough.
The main point is that Mike Prince George and the rest are supposed to destroy, as you know, and I was sitting down with him in Dallas, as I know you probably know,
The school systems get used to that extra money, and then to pull it away, then they've got to pony it up.
And of course, when you take it to Prince George and some of these other places, that's where most Congress and Senators live.
They pay taxes, so that raises money.
Mr. President, right there it seems to me that Montgomery County is the wealthiest county in the United States.
What is it?
The data you have elaborates these points that I'm making.
We're grading out a few.
It's in the...
The piece of paper said either, well, I guess, will be handed you, John, over their head.
And it does elaborate the case that I'm picking out just now for particular attention.
And that is one of the statements that Bob has hit upon extra as he just used one simple statement to say that Montgomery County, the richest county in the United States, received aid.
Now, why shouldn't they get it done?
Let me say again, the old county called mortgages on the poorest.
It received more than 100 smallest counties in the United States that could put the gas on.
All again, look for it.
They're not the smallest poorest.
They've got Newark State.
They've got Baxter.
They live out there, too.
They marry with income tax.
There's another one that, Roy, excuse me, that everybody has these materials, and they have the same symbol as the key fact sheets had during the campaign.
And I'm going to find this for now.
I'm not ready to verify it.
And there's a one page on each one of these things that Roy is talking about.
Let me go to another one here, one that Rory talked about this morning, the Waste Program that was stopped on December the 22nd.
I don't know if it's because of many people, but operating at the rate of $25 million per year or so, again, a program that goes back to the 30s, was created for, I don't know if it was a good reason at that time, but gradually, one of those purposes stepped in, and it's the burden they've become.
The monies have been spent quite differently than what's intended.
Everything turned out to be now just an extra goody for the farmer.
One of the interesting things is that the average payment has been $239.
You can see 225 million are spent and the average payment is $239.
What we're not doing really is contributing to the economy.
We have about a million individuals on the average.
I'm not sure the number is this, but by dividing those two numbers you come to about a million farmers.
which is a big proportion of all of them, each coming in to collect just a very small amount that really doesn't relate in any significant way to its own economics.
For that matter, anything goes.
There are examples of $400 worth of trucks around houses that are being considered as
As conservation practices, one interesting conservation practice, if you call it that, is cutting down trees.
We now find that some of the programs that under the very loosely defined criteria for spending this money, one goes out and cuts down trees to clear land, and that's considered conservation.
He gets his money for doing so.
So what has happened is over the years, this has been distorted in its application to the point that it really is no longer a program that serves a valid national purpose.
It really is a number of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars.
Sure, they're great guys too, but they each reach in for $239 a month.
The Treasury, there isn't any particular equity, particular reason for doing so.
REA, another program that was once good.
As a result of past programs, the federal government has already paid $240 million a year.
The big key factor here is that as recently as 1952, REA grants or loans went to
farms, and rural areas.
In 1971, that number is only 19%.
It's really no longer the Boeing Federalist Airways.
It is going to
Urban areas, going even to industrial areas, out in Manassas, Virginia, where IBM has gone in and is putting in a pretty big plant.
There's a lot of other development there.
A suburban area of 18,000, tied into the REA system.
There's really no basis for REA money supporting the Manassas electrical system.
And there are some other similar examples across the country.
In fact, four out of every five now installations are ones that are either industrial or alternatively urban or suburban, but clearly not rural.
In fact, the net effect of this reduction
Well, it really translates to a very big additional electrical bill.
I said they get it only 50 cents a month for average use, even five years out from now, a dollar a month, ten years from now.
It is not.
It makes a significant difference.
At one time of service purpose, up to date, 98.5% of all farms are connected to a central station electrical service.
So...
That program is one that we will acknowledge has served a great purpose.
Let's sign this over.
Would I be able to see the beneficiary of any of these rates because of what you offer?
If you were hooked onto an REA system, who would be the beneficiary?
These tend to be cooperatives and a beneficiary is whoever is on the line.
So the beneficiary in the suburban areas,
and that's what our other consumers, you know, they don't have to pay a dollar a day for the telephone system.
No intermediary there, just that switch.
And when you're trying to make $60 a year,
Well, we cannot emphasize that we're going to continue the loan availability.
Yeah.
On a quite a different basis, however, under the Rural Development Act, there will be 5% funding available as guarantee funds.
From the point of view of the fiscal situation of the government, of course, this is going to allow whatever government support there is to cover it actually more.
projects because guaranteeing the money is the same as subsidizing it.
And therefore the total available through Rural Development will be 760 million a year, where 560 million is in the level running through REA.
So there is more money available, however it's on terms, more fitting to today's times.
What's the situation?
Five percent versus the two that REA has had.
of the REA, I mean, of the REA gets to, Rural Development Act will provide for 5% interest for the
Well, let's take a look at that.
There's a prime rate now, six and a quarter.
So five percent is a bad rate, right?
Right.
And most people can't get the prime rate.
You know how it is today?
You find you are at prime rates.
People have already been up, and they say that we're going to raise hell, but we can live with the five percent as long as there's money available.
What we can't save is the cutoff of any bail dollars.
The money will be there.
It will be at more reasonable rates.
2% is really a legacy from the past.
When 2% was available, the federal government was able to borrow at less than 2%.
That's all.
What do we borrow?
What does the federal government borrow now?
Well, let's see.
We pay $24 billion a year, or put it down in terms of $50,000 a minute as what it costs to pay interest.
So when we're sitting here, you can see the money going out.
About $50,000 of money for interest.
Now some programs have serious questions as to whether they did ever serve their purpose.
Cincinnati is low-cost housing.
As you know, the benefits have been suspended for 18 months for re-evacuation.
And here, as Chairman Mayon said yesterday, every river at some point can be put into a teacup.
Well, the subsidized housing at one point was a small, small blow.
But as a result of advocates already taken under subsidized housing, we have outstanding commitments of, depending upon how interest rates may fluctuate over the years, of 57 to 82 billion dollars.
for the remaining run-out of the programs to which commitments have already been made.
Had we continued 73 and 74, those numbers would have gone up by another 15 to 27 billion.
These are depending on assumptions and prospective future interest rates.
But there would be, say, 70 to 100 billion dollars of commitments to run-outs
just as a result of subsidized low-cost housing programs that have already been committed.
There is not any evidence at all, or at least there's very little evidence, that it has had a useful and significant effect on total housing production.
The economy has had a major effect on housing production, and the higher beneficiaries have generally been intermediaries, not those of the receiving end of the supposed low-cost housing programs.
So that one is one that we think will support a lot of scrutiny.
We'll show that that is a program that we can well do without or at least take these 18 months to reconsider whether there could be, and if so, what should be, a better program to deal with the basic needs.
There is no reason to believe that these programs are a set one.
You know, correct me if I'm wrong here.
I'm going to be, the other thing was, what is it?
No, no.
This is certainly a suspension breach.
He does not stop any programs.
In other words, unless he came down and showed the whole, went around and down and down all over New York, most necessary stuff, basically what this does to the case is...
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
trying to force you to spend the money this time, is that correct?
I mean, no, a lot of pressure on you.
The problem is the urban areas.
I'm sure you understand, though, that when the horror stories are put out to the effect that they're project after project and they're being cut off, as far as the ones that have been begun and commences and then made, they will be completed.
That's correct.
That's the way it is there.
So we want to get that because I recall very different people how we used to have to freeze the public works project.
It was a great mistake to have a freeze in the middle of the project because all this increased the cost.
So we're not doing that.
We're simply saying, we're not going to start anything new until we re-evaluate the program to see whether there might be a better way to do it.
That's what the philosophy is.
Well, Mr. President, we're going to host people here this year, various urban centers throughout the country, and I think that's going to be very revealing.
We're going to prove the list.
We're going to stop and take a hard, cold look at the movement.
We're going to look at the one in Miami and do that.
I think one of the problems is how you define a commitment.
I know at the local FHA level,
Apparently there is some confusion as to what the cutoff date is on a commitment.
I know I've gotten complaints from a local FHA office.
Apparently there was one statement made and then it was modified.
If they would get definitive regulations as to what the cutoff date is, I think it would be very helpful.
They are, I think some place in the process, I know some place in the process is getting those out because that's coming from another number of places at one level, from local processing to here, to see it become a commitment.
We'll make sure that it gets out fast and clear where people are standing.
It isn't so much a question of faith, or if I can interject, there's a problem in differing criteria between different agencies or different area offices.
For example, one area office, they did not allow reservations on 235, and another one they did, not where they had regulations.
The way of wording the regulations, those that have reservations are fine, but those who acted in a...
retroactively because that's the way that particular area office work they're the ones that are cut and all i'm asking for nigeria is for common sense the basic program is the greatest thing that ever happened
But it's very important, Jack.
Take it closely.
At least if these kids are supporters of the last nine months, I know we can share it.
We don't want it.
We don't want it so that we can reassure them.
We're not trying to hurt them.
Well, this is one of the main problems here.
The original idea was to get housing in the hands of low-income families, but every time these programs keep surging up to middle-income families, and most of you are going to finish here, there's a lot of people of the lowest income.
There's no way you can keep it up.
In fact Senator, most of the beneficiaries, or at least a part of them, are not even the element of occupants.
They are the land sellers for those on the way through to, that have a part of the project on the way through to the element of occupants, rather than the occupant itself.
I doubt, certainly doubt that.
And now, in relation to this subject, and this is not something I want to discuss, but I hope that your committee will go through with this.
I told her the answer, and I went, well, she already started to do it, so I can talk to her.
Thank you, Curtis.
Thank you for your time.
I don't know if you've all sent your own opinion here about this, because there are a lot of honest men on both sides who agree that this program has not served its purpose.
Many believe it's a bad disaster.
But let's take another conversation.
And this is our group, the other side, who gets the benefit of the benefit.
Is it socially a good thing to, in effect, let all businesses segregate the poor?
Which means that many are segregating the blacks and put them in, basically, a federally subsidized low-income.
As the individual begins to be a producer, goes off the welfare roads, he's kicked out.
And so what you do, you automatically create a slump.
Now, as you know, the British experience, and God knows the British are finding ways to copy us and pay us and other things, and I don't know what other countries are doing, but there are other countries that looked at this and it's imperative.
Their experience was this, that by rigid rules, limiting the low-income housing to only the poor, you basically are segregating the poor.
And therefore, it's always going to be a lousy neighborhood.
We all know that if an individual is poor, if he's behind, what pulls him up is to have some, at least, association with people that are beginning to make it.
And he must have some incentive to get out.
There's another thing about your, you know, have the segregated poor.
Yet he realizes if his income goes above a certain amount, that 25% thing, they're going to boo him out.
Which is a lie.
So there you come to the housing allowance thing.
Why not move in another direction?
In other words, allowance to the individual.
Uh, which concern?
As somebody has said, when you, and we've all been through this, that you're moving up, what do you do?
You buy a huge car, right?
Or you may buy, in any particular area, the greatest expenditure, of course, if you go for something new.
Could we not rethink this in terms of perhaps an approach to be
those who need the housing directly rather than to build housing say only the poor can live there and thereby create and affect a ghetto of the poor which will always be that and which runs down and is destroyed i think uh because i i drove through there at the end of the day when i directed quite often
I said, now look, I want to go and see where these housing projects are.
And you drive through them.
And there's them pretty well down there.
Even though there ever was a downturn, there's always been less than 4%, about 3% now.
You go through here and say, housing project, four years old, and it's a damn disaster.
It's a total slump.
And the reason it's a total slum is that these are the people who have no incentive to get out, and no people there, these are the examples to move out.
So I'm not so sure.
Of course, that's arguing the other way.
We've come to a very interesting point.
I don't mean to do, I don't mean necessarily to delay your reasons, but I accept it.
The reason it needs reasoning is that we may, we've gotten to avoid this going down to old Washington with old programs with the best of intentions, but we, all of us who voted for, all of you who voted for lower and middle income housing, but only those in retail did it with the best of intentions.
Is that the best way to do it?
Take transportation.
I found it interesting enough that there are many suburban areas now, several suburban areas, that are raising grave questions about transportation.
Because they realize that trains run both ways.
And they don't want the people coming from the central cities out there to the suburbs.
Now, that's what the housing thing, how that fits in.
If you know, if you're in the Atlanta area, we had one hell of a fight over the last year.
So about putting a public housing project
outside of a suburban area because they said well what you're going to do is you put a kettle out here in the middle of our place well i don't raise these questions with any answers in mind but the final what i'm trying to say is that these are the questions that are already raised and it gets at the heart of the attack of this thing when they say all you want to do is to
get rid of housing that helps the poor, isn't that?
We believe, we want to, we want to help the poor, but we don't want to condone the poor and damn the poor to be poor for heroin, to live with the poor.
I know it's been difficult.
And therefore, we've got to find ways and approaches which will, of course, help the poor, but allow them to have an opportunity to move out.
Now, these are some thoughts I'm hoping that they look into.
Don't get so... Because otherwise, you'll come at the usual answer, whether it's recommend them, things of that sort.
Why can't you just go ahead and go on building and building and building?
And with the inevitable consequences that we have now, the major...
are the billionaires, the logmasters, the land developers, et cetera.
Along that same line, in urban renewal, there's a great number of instances where the beneficiaries are those that have owned or otherwise participated in the buying and selling of land on the way through to a development project.
In one particular community in which we've had thousands of very interesting intermediaries at work, the price that had been paid for parcels exceeded the appraised value, and this is out of 20 particular parcels that were acquired, the price exceeded the appraised value by 500% in nine cases, 1,000% in five, 1,500% in three, and 2,000% in one.
clearly any beneficiary that was intended, that he never did see what was intended for him.
It's a great opportunity for those to model and land the feelings.
And one instance of this, of this particular documented one, says that the whole
The whole program really existed for the purpose, for the benefit of those that were involved in the land buying and selling on the way through to urban renewal.
Or in public facility law, a community of a population of 23 people received from that $1,330,000, $58,000 per person in public facility law.
That's paying it back.
It's going to be a lot of money.
having done the first one.
Well, there are a number of them, and let me go on to just one, one further, because I know it's one that we talked about considerably.
This is the emergency disaster loan that came out of the Agnes in Rapid City.
The disaster is one percent loan for the $5,000 forgiveness.
As a result of the
popularity, I guess I would say, of those programs.
Of the over 3,000 companies in the U.S., more than half either have already been qualified as or have applied to become disaster companies.
And for that matter, of those companies, let's say over the last six years, the program was the basic one, which we did earlier.
Even then, we have the Agnes Brown State Program in disaster
Over six years of the 3,000 counties.
38 counties have been in six years in a row.
75 counties have been in five years in a row.
Disaster every year for five years.
249 have been in four years in a row.
354 have been in three years in a row.
578 have been in two years in a row.
Clearly this is not a discriminating program given the fact that 578 have been in two consecutive years, not just two years, not just six, but two consecutive years.
Or put another way, there is a group of what's called active emergency loan borrowers who turn up quite often.
There are 45 individual borrowers who have turned up six times.
52 of them, five times, up to 137 of them have turned up twice.
But this is not, in general, is an emergency development program.
This is just another way
of spreading money around.
Legislation is going to be submitted to put forth a more discriminating emergency law program to cover real disasters.
Most of these aren't what we would call real disasters, they are the
the normal things that happen particularly in rural areas that do have some effect on crops to create some crop damage but on the other hand that's normal not necessarily every year but from time to time what we have here in effect is a compulsory giveaway program
It was $150 million a year in 1972.
It's on its way, had it not been curtailed, on its way to being a billion-dollar-a-year program in 1974-75.
Just because the criteria eludes the application, that is not very specific, and it has not really turned out that these monies in particular had a time for forgiveness.
have gone to meet what we would define as emergencies or disasters, as much as they have gone to really put eventual government monies in the pockets of those who happen to be at the right time, in the right place, if you call the U.S. at the right time.
That was a major campaign after the earthquake out there.
If there were, I'm sure, having been there and observed it, I'm sure we released ten times the number of applications saved and approved because the criteria aren't precise or even useful.
and proves it truly had any significant amount of damage.
And the advertising, it affects it.
Look around and see if you have any cracks in your walls, no matter how they got there.
And they quite clear us a little bit.
That was the implication, that we haven't had any cracks in the walls or anything else that you could logically interpret it to as, wait, here's your opportunity, come and get it.
And the contractors were helping them.
that they developed the system, they developed their own ransom ship capability, and knew exactly how to work it.
Again, the criteria was sensitive.
It was very difficult to say, no, can they technically qualify?
Why would it be possible to get some photostats of those ants?
It would be very helpful.
Mr. President, I think we ought to be careful not to downgrade the damage created by Agnes.
That's the implication of what you say, if you will.
You can say this is just an area of terrible news.
We ought to tighten the criteria, but we still should.
I'm glad to hear that you still have to help places like... Well, there's an argument.
Well, we have the worst law in the nation's history.
The legislation we have seen is a hoax.
...to discriminate between a disaster and what here has been a very, very... ...we're not downgrading anything, but he says that over the 10,000 counties...
by spreading it to half the counties, it means that when you have a real disaster like Agnes, and I was up in Pennsylvania twice to see it, and I know we're not in the yard, then by zeroing in on the real need to do it properly, this is a question of loosely drawn legislation, loosely administered, and as a matter of fact,
I know that General Lincoln is a pretty good man at doing it, but boy, I'm telling you, about every day there's a half a dozen applications we turn down about half and sign about half.
I hear you have one hell of an experience, too, because the governors are the ones that really, when there's governors and mayors and the rest, we call this a disaster.
So what we're just going to be trying to do here is to tighten up the program.
And it's very good, very good motive.
But it's like, like uh, like REA.
Here we say fine, we'll continue to provide loans, but at 5% and help provide that.
So that is an advantage of the program and the money will be available to those that REA was supposed to help in the first place.
The purpose here is to help.
In those areas, when they turn quick, you've got to know, too, if you want to stop the contractors from going out and setting your clusters back, you've got to get a fix to get your clusters perfect.
Or if you want to stop people profiting from real distortions, other people's real distortions.
Right.
I'm sorry, but I know your time is running out.
I bring this to an end about now, so while there are many more specific questions...
or which information is provided here, it would be good for you to ask further questions about them and we'll be available over to you if you want to be able to elaborate on it.
I'm sure that somebody can make a case for some aspects of each problem.
This is a good example of any one of these programs.
On the other hand, the total program in each case we believe has more negatives than it has positives and could be looked at, reformed, some of them brought to an end, and could be brought to an end when together we're looking at a
an even more overriding need, and that is to have a totally responsible budget.
I think one of the ways that we could characterize this sort of budget this year is that it is the responsibility budget, responsible to the taxpayers, responsible to anybody interested in prices, and that is everybody, because inflation will not become rampant again.
also a responsibility budget in the sense that it assumes the responsibility within the executive branch to effectively do the work it is charged with doing.
I think the best way to characterize, therefore, what we're trying to do this year is to carry out the responsibilities that the president has to the people, either in their capacity as taxpayers or in their capacity as citizens in any way, and the actions here taken
we believe are an integral part of that approach to the budget, ones that we can go out and make a positive case on.
You don't have to be in the intensive, but there are many positives available to us, and we believe here at the executive branch that we should continue to have the initiative to be on the positive side, because sometimes it's important.
I can also add one word to you before you have your question.
I would say responsible also.
to the poor, to the young, to the disadvantaged.
The idea that this is a budget that is responsible only to the military and the rest is ridiculous when you look at the withholding.
It should be noted that the withholding
When you look at the priorities, as you all have seen in the charts over and over again, since we have come to office, the exact and reverse of priorities are now the amount of human resources is infinitely higher than that.
over a period of four years, and that in spite of increased costs in terms of health care and so forth.
But in terms of the poor, in terms of the health, and in terms of education, that's what it is fighting for just a moment, comparing it with what the situation was four years ago.
John Irwin was making the point that there's been a, in these various categories, around 400% increase
John, take a moment about food stamps, the elderly, the poor, etc.
Give us a couple of examples.
I think each of you have a copy of the graphs that go with the budget.
And that's the best place to look.
In program after program areas where we're concerned about the problems of the elderly, concerned about how they're concerned about these various social problems that we have in the country, if you look at those graph lines,
and compare where we were when the president came into office and where we are now in terms of the president's vote, you'll see that we're dealing in magnitudes of three and four hundred percent
All across the board, with problem groups, with income security, with the environment, housing, unions, urban and active transit, whatever it is, undertake a boost and program.
And third, that's a very dramatic increase.
It's also a very dramatic increase in the coverage.
of these 100 programs, now where when the President came into office there were literally hundreds, nearly a thousand counties in which there was no program at all, although the program was on the books.
Through very vigorous administration, those programs have been brought into every county except two, I think, in the United States, for a 500% increase in food stamps alone.
So we're not talking about 100.
In terms of the elderly, it's a magnitude of three to four hundred percent over four years.
We're not going to talk about the elderly in terms of education.
You're at a magnitude of three to four hundred percent in terms of the elderly.
Well, any one of these various categories that you want to take, education, housing, and so forth, it is a question of our not showing concern or not showing concern.
And it's a question, too, of saying the $250 billion budget means that we are not spending it.
very significant amounts for all of these areas that I have spoken about.
The $250 million budget is small.
The 268 does not treat these problems with disdain.
The point is that it is what we are trying to do.
is to remember that in addition to our obligation to provide for the poor, to provide for the elderly, which we are doing very generously,
to provide adequate education, all of which we are trying to do with the ability of our country to restore.
We have a broader obligation to every American, including the poor and under-raised crisis.
Everybody goes to the store, and that is everyone.
And that's the old folks, the young folks, the black folks, the white folks, the Mexicans.
chicanos, the wasps, et cetera, et cetera.
And so that's one thing that's on the line.
Now as far as the taxes are concerned, why would you remove grave members of the poor from the tax rolls?
When you talk about the working poor,
Those that are just moved out of the welfare line, people are going to say around $500,000 a year.
About 50% of the people, they pay taxes.
So we have an obligation not to give them a higher tax burden.
So we're talking about the tax burden.
We're talking about the prices.
Let's talk about things.
Let's talk about jobs.
We look upon 1973 as the economic report has already indicated as a year that can be a great year for this economy, as was 1972.
1972 ended just where the Council of Economic Advisers said it would end.
Their prediction proved to be better than they thought.
Five percent on the fund, and it will go down perhaps to four and a half, five percent.
What are those numbers?
Maybe it's four-seven, maybe it's four-three.
And they, they, the inflation could go down to maybe 3.5 or 3.4, maybe 2.5, 2.8, 3, whatever the case might be.
Now, when we look at all that, who has a say in that?
Well, the people out there in this country that you'll be talking to, the people that are candidates, and Bob, your candidates, Bill, your candidates will be talking to that you have to get your votes from.
But, for the four of us,
for all the other people and providing certainly very, very generously for them.
Also, understanding of the problems of millions of working Americans who've had a hell of a time balancing their family budgets.
Unless we keep the federal budget within bounds, we not only must take responsibility for raising their taxes,
The responsibility, we don't raise their taxes and overspend beyond the full climate budget of raising their prices, but more important of jeopardizing their jobs and their prosperity.
Because any, any, any economist will tell you that, of course, the Fed had, but his policies won't have something to do with this.
Fiscal policy is not the only thing that affects what the economy is going to be.
But we do know this, that as the economy moves into the full employment cycle, as ours is now moving, that we will then face the situation we faced in 1968.
In 1968, with this economy in full employment, that means unemployment is slightly less than 4%.
We ran a $28 million deficit, not just an actual deficit, but a full employment deficit.
And that was highly inflationary.
And we paid a very big price in 1969 when the inflation went up to 6%.
Now, we brought it down by not only phase one and phase two and phase three and so on, but by very sound fiscal policies.
And now we've really come to the point where we've all got to make a choice.
Now it's very easy for, I know and I understand some of our Democratic friends and some Republicans too,
looking at their particular constituencies, will say, well, I'm against tax increase, so forth, as I pointed out to the bipartisan leaders.
I have to check every one of these places we've been on, and we can deal with my people.
Everybody's against the tax increase.
Everybody's for holding down the cost of living, and everybody's for
or more jobs, reducing employment.
But in order to do that, you begin with one fundamental point.
We must have a responsible budget.
$250 billion is a responsible budget.
Any above that runs the risk of inflation that means higher prices unless you raise taxes.
And so the votes on all these things, these vetoes that we're gonna hand out, whatever it is, they'll say, but that's only $200 million, and this is only $300 million, and this is only a billion dollars.
As I said, bills that were coming down here on this veto list, total, it's about a billion dollars over three years.
Anybody that wants those bills, it's about a billion too.
They want $7 billion.
I want to know where, who they're going to tax for it.
What kind of a tax they're going to have.
We'll take it out of the rich.
It's not there.
We'll take it out of this reform and that reform.
Okay, fine.
You tell me if you want to cut down on it.
You can't deduct your market.
You know, 70% of the people in this country
do own their homes, and most of those 70% have mortgages, right?
And they have that interest.
So what I can stand down to is that
This battle is fought out on the basis of the Reef Meadow or on the basis of the housing program or the basis of this or that or the other thing.
You lose every time because then you're against housing for the poor folks.
You're against helping the farmer.
You're against electrification for those poor people living out in the hills of Tennessee and all that sort of stuff.
The point that that battle is fought out very simply is that the question is whether or not you want to raise taxes.
or crisis, or jeopardize your prosperity, we can win.
But you've got to keep the pressure back on that.
And there's no easy way out.
Listen, if there were any easy way or two that we would have offered, if, for example, we thought we could get this out even on the Brooklyn standard, it's all part of that, we just come to the Congress and say, look, as a price in order to get along with the Congress, we're not going to hold the funds.
Because I want to emphasize once again, and here's where the Republicans are going to be very careful on these vetoes, Terry, you,
The Congress.
Override veto.
If the Congress passes legislation requiring the spending of withholded, withheld funds, there will have to be a tax increase.
And it will be the Congress's tax increase.
Now that's the way it's going to be.
It's not going to be the President's.
That's the issue I'm going to make over and over and over again.
And I would hope some of you would make it too.
Now, at the same time, though, and I say this speaking out of the other side, at the same time, don't get in the way of saying, well, we're just squeezing it out of the poor and squeezing it out of the elderly and squeezing it out of the teachers and all the rest.
We're not.
We're doing a great deal for them.
We're trying to do a more effective job in these various programs and these, let's face it,
Whether it's OEO, you can find some good things in OEOs.
You can find some good models.
But you know, in every program, you've got to look at the whole thing.
You've got to find out how overall could that money better be spent in some other area.
And that's what we try to do.
And that's why we laid it out there.
Yes?
Two points I wanted to raise.
One is, I know we can finally change the budget, Roy, but if we could have, for the next three years, a single less response to social needs, or if more
If I could suggest, if you don't ever look at another budget document, if you would look at that chart
that is the easiest way to see this as a bottom-line theory.
Yes, sir.
Over the past four years, we have appreciated the algorithm.
That's correct.
That's right in there.
And you'll find the legends.
And I think you'll find that you can live with that chart book to persuade the exclusion of everything else.
How we can reduce that.
I was going to say this, John.
If you could pick up the, if I could say, the algorithm.
education, hunger, et cetera, food, whatever.
I know that all our guys, our friends and us, the leaders may read the chart book, but believe me, that average person is so damn busy, he moves through his mail and runs around, he just isn't going to read it.
I use the words put right in his mouth.
I use the chalk book, but you don't carry that around your back pocket for one thing.
When you go for one meeting, I love three or four a day.
The other thing is, the chalk book doesn't answer questions we need answers like, when you break down a category, how much did we do for the blind?
That's a dramatic thing.
And what does that do for the handicapped?
You can find all of that in the budgeted brief.
But let's say we can break this down rather quickly.
What we're really referring to is nothing.
Nothing.
Not too much.
We just picked the ones that really strike home, the blind and the sick.
What I want to say is, Senator thinks it's home.
My hunch is, we'll be glad to do this and we'll produce something, but if you don't find what we produce, what you're looking for, we'll find it either in the chart book or in the budget and brief, which is a very small amount.
Let us figure out what we make from based on your conversations here.
Let's give them a list, sir, but don't make it as comprehensive as you thought.
If you've got some particular concerns, like, you know, muscular dystrophy or something like that.
Look, I can give that, but I found practical application.
And the universe continued the other day.
Trying to speak and answer questions from the chart book is a rude response in itself.
You better look up the answers.
You can memorize the pages so that you're real.
That's why you don't see a character problem.
The other part is, I read that Lyndon Johnson counted 5.3 billion in 1966.
I suspect that if we break those things down, other accountants, by other factors, by percentage, the accountants of this administration will not be quite so great.
We're going to give you these numbers, and we're going to give you a copy of Ron Ziegler's briefing yesterday, in which you will find all the back-up for this on about three pages.
A couple of Roy's were there, and it's all broken out, but it's very interesting.
The total of all transfers
It's 3.5% of the total budget outlay since 1973.
The comparable percentage...
The comparable percentage at the end of the fiscal year in 1959 through 1961 ranged from 7.5% to 8.7%.
At the end of the fiscal year in 1967, which was the Johnson year, it stood at 6.7%.
over the last
We give you that broken heart by the years so that you can look at any of the years from 1960 through 1973.
And why do they do it for the very same reason?
It has to be the president.
That's the responsibility of all people.
This has to do with some congressmen, leaders, and parties that are in these parties, and the president's the one in which all the Irish diets are released.
He has to be discussed.
If I got on board with that program, I'd raise this because I'm going to say, sure, and this is the time I came for, some of you that may have been there.
I'm going to say, sure, other presidents have done it, but this president has done it so much more than anybody else.
This is not a thing, man.
Well, let me ask you another thing, which might be of interest to you.
You've heard a lot about the exercise of extending privilege at this summit.
Do you want to go around?
How many times over the last four years would you say that you've been at this summit?
Because we've done it more than others.
So is that as bright as it gets?
So that's the impression of the process.
But it's three times what he does.
We've got John, John had this, he went around the U.S. and he's their expert who covers all this.
Asking this question.
And John said, well, let me tell you all three times.
Well, I know it's four, but I know it's four.
And I said, we just believe three.
And he said, well, that can't, you mean three times in the lecture or three times in four years?
The executive privilege has been used less in this administration than most of the churches.
Three times in four years.
So, you see, what I'm getting at is that it's a part of this, it's a tradition we fight for, that we would not be having if we had more people.
Mr. President, I think alongside of that, we want to say that John Kennedy used it six times in less than three years.
Do you know that?
Yes, we know that.
Who did?
That's very good.
Three, six times in less than three years.
Now, there was no outcry, whatever it was.
I'd like to say that yesterday, I would say if I may interrupt you, it's very true to history.
I put this report in the record yesterday.
I thought it was so good, and these figures and everything, so if anybody wants to send the record, then...
Furthermore, I could put in the record some what Randy Clark said about his song, Fuck, and what he said behind it by Lyndon Johnson.
What Senator Harry Truman said about his song, Fuck, and also what...
Mr. President, could I ask Roy a question?
Because this was asked to me yesterday and I didn't have it on the tip of my tongue.
I was talking to some educators.
They're concerned about the alleged cutback or elimination of certain education courses.
As I understand it,
What you're seeking to do is through special revenue sharing and education, substitute special revenue sharing for categorical grants.
Now, what is the comparable figure if you added up all the categorical grants?
That's alongside of the special revenue sharing for education, just about the same.
And you can not only answer that for education, but for all of the special revenue sharing.
If you look at the 74 budgets that has proposed special revenue sharing, and that's proposed as the plant categorical programs, nevertheless the pool for cities and states
About the same, plenty of them, 74 over 73, substantially over 72, and all other years.
There has never been, in the last five years at least, a turn down of the amounts going to cities and states, even though the mayors are coming to town and deploring it all.
The special revenue sharing has been measured out in an amount.
So this will equal an offset categorical program.
You're asking for a hell of a lot, but could you take what you propose for education, special revenue sharing, and dollars, and lay the wrong side on the comparable amounts in categorical grants?
And then the same for households, for all the work that... One very fundamental point, Jerry, that I made last time, and I want to emphasize it again, this is a matter of philosophy, and your educators will totally disagree with you on that one.
We are moving away from these grants to education institutions.
We're moving to grants, loans, et cetera, to the students, so that basically it's a fire rather than a summer fire.
And a lot of the educational institutions don't like this with the car, because they want to continue to subsidize their facilities and buses.
You're going to have more competition in the education system than the parents will buy in a minute.
Well, you know, some of those that I used to meet with the black colleges, which are terrible.
Thank you.
They said, why isn't this, you know, people who, why don't we ever get a meeting?
Well, you know, the reason they don't get one is because they basically haven't got the qualified people to do this sort of thing.
Although they might have people in some industries that might be more appropriate than trying to sabotage them.
This is the fact that they're not a team.
So, you know how this stuff goes for the most part, that they grant to the so-called elite institutions?
Well, it's big and leads them.
And that doesn't mean they're bad institutions.
The University of California is a great university.
Chicago is a great university.
MIT is a great university, and so forth and so on.
But, so is Caltech.
But out there in this great country of ours, there's a hell of a lot of colleges and so forth that have most and many of us graduated from.
that have never been beneficiaries of this service.
Now what we're gonna do is to provide the kids, or the grads, or whatever they get, is the philosophy, it isn't all done at once, to the students, and believe me,
The professional educators are violently against them.
They do not want the students to make the choice.
They want the money.
We've got to stop.
We're giving bad government money.
The right articles on how bad the government is, we're giving that to them.
Now the worst signal, believe me, if I were John Tarr, I think, would say this.
It isn't right to provide, it is not right to provide for an institution like MIT
hundreds of millions of dollars from the Department of Defense to subsidize the salaries of assistants and associate professors, which all of them unanimously condemn national defense.
They want to subsidize it to get out, you know, to have a bill or something else, that's something else.
But my point is, as far as national defense is concerned,
Of course, I tried to get this at one point, and it seemed to be too bloodthirsty.
This was two years ago, and some of the professors were saying, and all these faculty were saying in their oppositions, and that's from 15 years old.
I said, fine.
And they said, it is fine.
I suggested that before 10 grand, we made an institution that a majority of the faculty should vote if they wanted to grant it.
The Nationalists, the University President, they're horrified.
They said, well, we can't do that, we might not have money.
They said, well, no.
They said, they're saying that this government is going to pay back all the interest to work on national defense.
They at least don't say, we're for national defense.
I don't mean they have to work on national defense.
I don't mean they have to serve us.
But they damn well can't be separate from national defense.
Is that too high for you?
No, I don't think so.
As a matter of fact, you're thrown out of the ROTC because of the fact that you've got to post today.
Why should you go out on some of these grants?
Go ahead.
I assume that there is a sinkhole in the grants of that time, and grants for fundamental medical and scientific research.
The University of New York has a heart, an artificial heart, an organization which has invested a lot of money.
They're scared to death now that they're going to lose.
Those grants are because of this restatement policy.
And I don't think that's the kind of grant you're talking about.
Doesn't the budget provide for a 27% increase in heart and cancer?
Yeah, both of those are going to go up because the University of Utah, I don't know.
Oh, it's a lot more centered on that.
But I think in the statement policy, some indication might be that you're not talking about patients.
I hope this discussion has been helpful as the leaders prepare for when they address certain budgets in the news.
But I would hope that we wouldn't forget our base issue, and that's the Vietnam peace.
The Democrats aren't talking about it that much these days, but if you move around and make speeches, let's keep it on.
I'm murmuring.
And I've got a big book column in the writing today.
It's important to me.
Well, do you have any material on the package?
I have it.
Here it is.
I have it.
I have it.
I have it.
I have it.
I have it.
I have it.
I have it.
I have it.
I have it.
I have it.
I would just be convinced of the city.
Well, I just want to say that Barry Goldwater put out a record, made it a station play by a newspaper columnist that said, that's absolutely terrific.
And I asked him the other night about the regulation, he said he turned out $20,000 in sales.
And I was convinced that he's kind of every member of Congress, and we were getting to see that.
He had an outfit that didn't use points, but it was a record yesterday, and we ought to make the best use of that very distance to reach that weekend, because that shit beats right there.
Huh?
What was it?
Well, it was a compilation of everything that the Washington Post said, the New York Post said, the St. Louis Post did a bad job.
But every one of these commentators, ABC, BBM, that set us all down in line.
All the really things they said about all that could have happened to the Pete, and then the fact that he couldn't do it, like I said, he didn't like it, he didn't do it.
It just couldn't go on long enough for him to have an honorable Pete.
Could I put it in the very sentence?
There is no desire, and there should be no desire, in my part, to base on those who, frankly, by their efforts, not deliberately, I'm sure, make it very difficult to get the peace.
I would have to say, however, that...
looking over these long, perfect negotiations.
And I'll put an understatement not to be broken down in this room for years.
So when the record is fully put out, which can't be done until years later, when it's fully put out, it will show the so-called pieces that prolonged the war.
They prolonged the war because just at a time to be ready for progress or breakthrough in the negotiation, the Senate would pass a resolution
Some sort of a margin came in place and I paid back away.
Two things brought this thing to a head.
One was the May 8th decision that led to the October breakthrough.
Combined with the October breakthrough, in fact, the whole Australian October break indicated that they had no those on their plan.
That's when it started happening.
After the election, they started storming.
And then, of course, we, without trying to characterize what happened, we only looked at the events of the general judges and the agenda days and purchase negotiations in which they raised conditions, including conditions on our POWs that we could not tolerate.
That was a major factor in our decision.
We acted strongly.
The negotiations began again in January, and they were completed.
Now, however,
how it all happened, who shot John, all that.
Let's just keep front and center what the United States did accomplish here.
I met yesterday the Nobel defense, and really, you know, all men are brave now.
It could have been a blast, but it's very fortunate in a way that this country didn't.
And the last one was Colonel Oates.
He was one of Bob Draymond's positions.
So we have come to the same pretty long line.
Five children.
I mean, four boys and a girl.
And, you know, they'd just been out to our ceremony for us, and they came in.
His 82-year-old father and four, and five sisters and two brothers.
And if you ever saw a typical American family, when I say typical, I mean that not as a put-down, but as a great compliment.
And they talked the way that the so-called silent majority, which is so disdainfully referred to in Eastern media,
They talk to in a way that the Pete Brackett's talking to right now.
They are the heartland of America, and the heartland is all over the country.
You've got them in Pennsylvania, I'm sure.
You've got them in New York.
You've got them in California.
That's the point.
It's that kind of thing that really keeps...
She told, I told her this, that I had received quite a few letters after Mrs. Constance.
She conducted herself as you know, obviously.
And I said, but on the other hand, we would expect that after all, she had been First Lady for five years.
And I said, Mrs. Nody, I think you should know that you have conducted yourself as a great First Lady.
And she said, well, we just want to thank you for the privilege of coming to my house.
My husband, one of his last letters he wrote, he said he'd like to take us to Washington to show the young people, the kids, some of the places.
And so you showed her the capital, you showed her my house in Branson.
A little 16-year-old daughter.
She was a great man.
Almost like a Miss America.
She was not just a magician.
And, of course, that happened.
And that little boy, Henry, he was a 17-year-old.
And if you wouldn't have known different, you would think he was one of these people who, you know, was out shopping, that, that, you know, all that sort of thing.
The one vendor at the Inaugural Parade, this 17-year-old, and he's got a little mustache and a beard and all the rest.
But he read an essay, or a statement, or something like that, and he said, well, he had a piece of freedom.
That's all I can say.
That was what it was all about.
That that is, that that was our job, and how to see that his father and 45,000 others did die for something.
That we could have a peace, but not just a peace, but a peace and freedom, and that brings me to the fundamental point as to our obligation.
If we had lost the election, if our government were here,
the Vice President of the United States would now be in Hanoi, hand in hand, asking for the release of the prisoners.
We would be committed to withdrawing all Americans in 90 days.
There would be no hope of a ceasefire.
There would be a certainty that the Communists would take over all of South Vietnam.
Basically, the difference in our position and that of the Buckeyeers, or should I say the base of this country,
And I have not stated it in a condemning way.
I just simply stated it as a matter of fact, because I know it was an honorable man.
Many of them felt that way, and many others had other beliefs, but we won't question their beliefs.
The difference is that those who set peace at any price, we have to look at the price.
Even in January 1969, four years ago, I had done what many Republicans urged me to do from a political standpoint.
with all $550,000, got out, got our prisoners back, which is a number they never give us back because we've offered to give them to the rest of the United States.
If I had done that, we would have ended the war for the United States.
We would have given respect for the United States and trust for the United States and all of its allies in the world.
If the United States, after that much sacrifice, would plunge an ally down the tube and allow a communist government to be imposed by force, are the Europeans going to trust us?
Are the Asians going to trust us?
Are the Japanese going to trust us?
The Japanese would have no defense except without us.
Are the Europeans really going to have none without us?
They all squealed because of their media attacking them, the leaders attacking them to have the bomb or to bring the war to a conclusion.
But actually, even the Washington Post made a very different point in this respect.
They said that while our, the things we had to do to prick the boil, bring the war to a conclusion, while they cost us a great deal in popularity in the world,
that they paid off and increased respect for them.
And that's what was on the line, not many other things.
What did we accomplish?
What was the Hickey all along?
The Hickey, very simply, it was a very confused situation.
The Hickey was not that the United States started a war and was trying to conquer North Vietnam.
We could have done that in a couple of weeks if we really wanted to and thrown them off our car.
The Hickey was that the United States was going to the aid of a small country
and was trying to prevent its name from imposing by force a communist government on those people.
And for ten years we fought for that.
Many lost sight of it.
The North Vietnamese failed, and we succeeded, because South Vietnam is still a non-communist country.
The future of South Vietnam will be determined by the South Vietnamese.
They may fail, but it will be their fault, not us.
We're going to help them, and we hope that is the case.
And so, that is what Colonel Loewe understood.
He understood that 17 million people, whether or not communism was opposed by force there, would not only have affected South Vietnam.
It would have affected the nation.
It would have affected Thailand.
It would have affected Japan.
It would have affected Western Germany.
Let me tell you.
Had I not acted on May 8th with a bomb and a mine,
We would never have any agreements with the Russians in Moscow.
Well, they won't say that.
They can't say that.
But if the President of the United States goes to deal with either the Chinese or the Russians in a country that lacks respect of its allies, that president is not worth talking to.
So what we're really getting down to here is this.
We've ended the war.
When they say peace with honor, as I said, it's
body wrestling and gags on the right and on the other hand, many others feel the same way because when you read it in the New York Times, they always put it in quotes, peace with honor.
Is it better or a bad thing?
Peace with dishonor would have meant, not dishonor in just a generalistic sense, but it would have meant that the only nation in the free world with the power to stop
A communist conquest of the world is the United States, and it would have lost the credibility and the trust of its allies and the respect of its enemies.
The way we ended this war retained the trust of our allies around the world.
It cost us a popularity.
I'm sure we understand that very well.
It retained the respect of our allies.
It retained the respect of the movement.
But it also
got the attention of our potential adversaries.
So as a result, just as you know, it's only close enough for those after this moment.
So what I simply say is that we can all second-guess how Kennedy got us in.
You read the barrel book, you will find it was a tragedy.
We can all second-guess the murder of DM, which happened under Kennedy.
We can all second-guess the settlement in Laos from Captain Leonard Kennedy, which opened the old German trade.
We can all second-guess Johnson's gradual escalation.
But the motive of the United States was a good motive.
It was a decent motive.
It was a selfless motive.
Not to conquer North Vietnam, but to help the nation to change its independence and to avoid a communist government being pulled from the world.
Because if it had happened there and the United States had backed down, particularly if it happened where we were in and we had been in, and the greatest power in the world had had to knuckle down to the North Vietnamese, the effect on our allies would have been catastrophic, on our enemies, it would have encouraged them to other adventures throughout the world, and the neutrals would be no longer neutral, they'd be on the other side, where most of them are most of the time anyway.
It's rather interesting, and this is what nobody would understand, is that her husband did, and that that 87-year-old boy who looked like a, you know, some would say long hair and all the rest.
Don't judge it by the hair or the mustache or the beard.
The question is, what do they have here?
What do they have here?
And I simply want to say to all of you here today that
One of the reasons that I've taken a very strong stand between some of our Republicans and great Republicans has nothing to do with lack of compassion.
I feel sorry for people who have made mistakes.
I'd like them to come back.
But you see, they don't want to come back in terms of saying, you made a mistake and so forth.
They want to say, we morally were right.
And the home of two grand, the people that deserted the United States, you say they were morally right.
What?
The other side of the coin, you say that Colonel Noly and 45,000 others were morally wrong, and that two and a half million men served their country were morally wrong.
And that, you see, we can't do.
It's rather amusing that Haynes Johnson drags out the old one himself.
He hasn't read his history very well.
Of course, his legend wanted to give evidence, but who?
To the thousands.
But I told around this table, once before, toward the end of the war, a young kid had run off to Canada, came to the gate of the White House, sent a letter in, I'd like to come back.
Lincoln wrote on it, you can come back, but you must serve in prison a number of days if you're not out of the country.
That was his attitude toward those who deserted, toward the draft Congress and the rest.
That will be our attitude.
And the reason we're doing it is not because we want to be hard on them, and not because we want to be kind about their individual cases.
If somebody has a term that they wouldn't care to somebody, you know, there may be reasons and so forth to look at.
But as far as the power over humanity, as far as I'm concerned, the position of this country is, I'm going to think of Colonel Logan.
and all those kids.
And I'm going to go dead ahead for those people who chose to run away.
That's what it is.
President, I know you know this, but during all this, there's a war.
Not a single member of your leadership is appointed ever.
I know that never was.
Ever, ever, ever.
That's right.
And let me say that I know it's been hard.
I often sit around this table and I say, Paulson,
Things were going on, I can't tell you about it.
Many times, I know you've wondered what it was.
Frankly, I had hopes that we would pull this off long before.
But believe me, what not the leadership did, but you, and not, frankly, the House David's, but many times, those votes in the Senate, it's like cutting off the negotiator right at the knees before he goes.
And we couldn't say anything about it because he was blown away.
But after all, it's over now.
The point that I make is, if I can very respectfully suggest this is wrong, we should continue to hit it.
And just say, as I said in the paragraph, for the first time in 10 years of Lincoln Day speeches, you're able to say that the United States is no longer a foreign union.
We have peace.
For the first time in 10 years, you can also say, too, that we not only have that, but we're building a new structure of peace in the world.
the iniquity with the People's Republic of China, the iniquity with the Soviet Union.
There are enormous problems in the world.
There's the Middle East, there's the problem of getting Europe back into the state and so forth.
There's the problem, of course, in the state, and Southeast Asia doesn't grow up again.
And we're not suggesting that it's going to be a world that's all that easy.
But the point is, I think Republicans particularly, and not in a partisan sense, but above partisanship,
These other people are scrounging around about presidential power and arrogance and impoundment and all the rest.
After that, as best you can, they come back to the fundamental point that we found 550,000 Americans in Vietnam four years ago, 300 casualties a week, and no peace proposal on the table.
We ended the war.
We ended it with honor.
And we ended it in a way that
allies and kept also and gained from a very important respect from our potential adversaries in the world, and thereby laid the foundation for relaxing peace so that America can play a role.
Let me just summarize what he's saying.
There will be no freedom and no peace in the world unless the United States plays a role.
Because who else?
I talk to you.
You love to play a role.
But the British cannot anymore.
The French might want to play a role, or they've always turned inward ever since Algeria, but they don't have it anymore.
The Germans can't.
The Japanese can't.
Those are the great industrial nations.
They can't have this.
Who wants to play?
If I didn't come down, there's only one place where you can play.
It's going to be played in the United States.
I'm excited to see all this.
That's why there's so much more of the state than just getting out of Vietnam, getting Mars headlines, and getting nice editorials from the Post and the Times and the rest of it.
I don't necessarily rather like to be banter all the time in the news magazines, the Times, the Post, and all the networks that encourage men.
But let me say this, many of you have to get this forward in the right way, that you have to respect for the United States as the only VC bringing the value of the nation and the world
If we don't have it, believe me, there ain't going to be any peace, there's not going to be any freedom.
And that means not just for the rest of the world, but for us.
Because if we're surrounded by red cities, we'll soon become red, too.
So we'll just have to get out there and smack them.
Okay, good luck.
It went too well.
I'm sorry we have to put it in the stock budget, but six months from now, we're going to have it.
I'm sorry.
Oh, my God.
You know, it's just the way it is.
It's just the way it is.
We're very proud of you.
We're very proud of you.
We're very proud of you.
I had 50 letters on the station.
And people are mad at us.
It's the Romanian situation.
And that gets all screwed up in the list.
And I really think that's one of the best things we've made in 70 years.
I'm, I'm involved in the remains of the .
I'm glad you, I'm glad you're playing a good show.
And of course, you know, there are a lot of us, and they try to say, can anybody get any such thing?
It'll kill them, you know.
I don't know how many of you have had it at all, but I've only had it once, and I don't know how many of you have had it.
I don't know.
I don't know.
How do you do?
They look pretty good, but I messed them up, didn't I?
Maybe I'll give them that one.