Nixon, Ehrlichman & Haig on Federal Budget and Revenue Sharing

17:39I bet.
17:40Like that?
17:41All right, sir.
17:44Great John Connolly's Blue Bucket with Little Pigs.
17:47Well, you got anything?
17:50I think so.
17:51I've never seen it.
17:55I don't know about that.
18:01Okay.
18:01Well, what is your bad news today, Uncle Mudgee?
18:06Well, no, it's bad news.
18:07It's honest.
18:08Usual cat burger, I mean, wine burger, honest.
18:11What are we going to do?
18:13Take some more lunches out of the poor kid's mouths or something like that?
18:23Take some help away from him.
18:27It isn't for children.
18:29That's the irritating thing about that.
18:31It isn't for children.
18:32Oh, I know.
18:32One and a half million needy children.
18:34I read it over and over again.
18:35Then I read the story a little more carefully.
18:37Then, of course, it isn't any for kids at all.
18:40It just says they've got to be able to hold a poverty line.
18:42It's like children went to school in Hillsborough, California, because they've got to milk something.
18:48It's just absurd.
18:50Hell, they get it in San Marino.
18:51They shouldn't.
18:53It's not true.
18:56I think the best way to do it would be to first take this table and help me
19:26Yeah, and they wanted a very kind of errands move, errands put in the provision.
19:40The House conferees could not even consider the Mansfield amendment in confidence on the ground that it was extraneous to the House bill.
19:49It was close, about two things.
19:55But nevertheless, that's a very important vote.
19:57It is extremely important.
19:59That's very important.
20:02To win on that basis, because otherwise it gets closer over time.
20:07Okay, let's go.
20:08This table contains a lot of information about where the 72 budgets stand and various possible things with respect to 73.
20:20And as background for the total discussion, what I'd like to do is sort of run down and parallel carefully with him so that he would see what is involved.
20:30And then he has some key questions about it.
20:33Right.
20:33Taking the first column, that's more or less where we stand currently in public hearing for 72.
20:43I can see that we have the various items there, including about three billion in non-enacted presidential initiatives.
20:47We'll see tomorrow what the revenue and deficit situation is, even if the presidential initiatives are not enacted, so that we wind up with an outlay figure of America's southern 230, which is about what we forecast.
21:13So we still have a very large package of deficit and we haven't sort of come to the next column.
21:27You won't get your emissions.
21:28So we are carrying them down here.
21:30So your deficit might be as low as 25, that's all.
21:34Well, I think, yeah, I think there's some railings in there.
21:36Yeah.
21:3725 is a reasonable number.
21:3825 to 6.
21:395 to 6.
21:40But that has a bearing on what we may do in 73, with various matters about late minutes.
21:46The first column under physical 73 is sort of what you've seen in our earlier discussion, kind of the unconstrained, but in picture, where everybody... Before I said 350.
21:59Everybody might go.
22:00Everybody, more or less, gets what they want.
22:03That's about how you come out.
22:05That's the 80 billion defense and the various civilian things.
22:10and allows for initiatives, you know, an active presidential initiative to carry forward into fiscal 73.
22:20And you can see, you know, Fred, before you go on that, John, at the legislative leaders' meeting this morning, Scott was putting a little sleeper in there that I'm sure you know, I don't know if Gregor knows it or not, but he and Mansfield were going to sit down and talk about what was on the plate for the rest of the time, the change in the legislature.
22:38And obviously, Revolutionary and welfare reform are not in there, and I just want to be sure, just for the record, that Scott lets Mansfield know categorically that we, damn well, are not going to agree to whatever it could be.
22:58and that's what they can do without our agreement, until they at least make an effort.
23:04I said we're not going to get them, probably.
23:07When I say we're not going to get them, I'm sure.
23:11Could I ask you, what's your evaluation of that?
23:13Are they doing the damn thing on either one?
23:16Well, as Mills does, 50 bucks over.
23:18See, it's not what was his reaction at all, it was next door, but...
23:22The voters are ready.
23:23Completely quiet, as far as I know.
23:26As far as what it means on the revenue sharing, we continue to battle.
23:35The staff has told our people now that they're ready to move.
23:40The big letter that I was looking at was the symbolic end to the revenue sharing.
23:47Now we're ready to do something.
23:52his way of announcing the death metal revenue share.
23:58So that now whatever comes out is his work product.
24:04Right.
24:05And the staff is doing work with the public interest group staff on various alternatives.
24:13So something may or may not come out of that.
24:16We went through this once before.
24:18Yeah, right.
24:18Welfare reform.
24:19Welfare reform long will not let our committee until next year.
24:21Okay.
24:22Okay.
24:25Bye.
24:26Well, he doesn't like it.
24:27He wants more time to finagle.
24:29And I've been on the phone with him twice.
24:33All right.
24:33Could I just say, basically, the big battle is to make the political issue different.
24:37And we do get the word to all of our people to just beat the hell out of those bastards who are not being nurtured in so hard.
24:47and all the other ones.
24:49What happened to your proposal, John, to get together a little speech on all these domestic initiatives where these clouds have done everything?
24:58Well, we had the speech already, and it was a question of timing.
25:04We never made it.
25:05No, no.
25:05For our people, for all kinds of other people, it was to start moving this line.
25:11But, and we have that time, as you know, our residents are incredibly hot.
25:16And the Vice President hit them, maybe one whole speech, and just blasted them.
25:21So we're doing some of that selectively.
25:23But the very recall, until we got by some of these armed services committees.
25:27Now, how about a welfare reform?
25:29Well, since your breakfast, I've been up listing a long back vote.
25:35Will we even do the...
25:36Yes.
25:37We can get some welfare reform.
25:38If we can even get them to do the experiment.
25:41Yeah.
25:41I mean, but I don't mean a picayunish one, maybe.
25:44That's right.
25:45Three or four states.
25:46Along the road with this, and so will that, Rivercroft has made a treaty with about a dozen governments.
25:55for a very liberal welfare bill.
25:58And this is going to have to be fought on the floor of the Senate.
26:04And very strongly urges that this not be attended until next year.
26:09Thank you.
26:11Thank you.
26:11That's what we need.
26:12All right.
26:13There's your initiative for 72 years.
26:18No.
26:18Is this 80 the figure?
26:20No, I think that's the figure that the defense said was inadequate with that.
26:24Well, I'd like to come back to the veto on the defense and also on these other things.
26:30I first wanted to get this information for the minister.
26:35Right.
26:37Now, after your July presidential guidance and then modifying that by the tax changes in the other proceedings,
26:48We have more or less that middle column in 73.
26:51There we had a 75 billion defense figure.
26:55And we had the overall total of 250.
26:59And at Camp David, if you remember, we did move around those special weapon-sharing initiatives.
27:06So that takes down, in that camp, the non-active presidential initiatives and slips them a little bit.
27:15And we have the totals that you see at the bottom on the surpluses there.
27:22The final column gives an option that would bring us both front and front panel.
27:31Now, there are a great variety of ways in which we could get to that point if you want to.
27:39And I think that what we really want to do is explore those different ways and see how you would want us to move on.
27:49As you can see,
27:50The test budget is held at the 75 and 76 level.
27:54The relatively uncontrollable are being down slightly.
27:57The unactive presidential initiatives are handled in a different way.
28:05And we do come down to a budget that is balanced for 20 states.
28:11Now, built into this is
28:17possibility of around $5 billion of what might be called outlay managers.
28:25Remember that we went up with a defense budget of 72 of 76 billion instead of 75.
28:31And as we reported to you some time ago, seeing the 71 budget be so far out now, we moved a billion dollars of outlays into 71 just at the end of the year.
28:46giving us a little more room in 72.
28:50And that kind of movement around the edges in a lot of these budgets is easy to do.
28:56I'm just taking the defense example.
29:00We have that billion in the bank, so to speak, and we could borrow a billion from 74, and we could take down the published outlay estimate for 73 by 2 billion just by this process of outlay financing.
29:16We can do similar things on the domestic side within limits.
29:27And these numbers and the variations, as you can see in the footnotes, suggest the way in which we'll play around with that and get to these kinds of numbers.
29:46And you can see this third option under fiscal 73,
29:55What does that require has cut a bit of work on existing programs, controllable programs, which are really under remainder, as under the middle column.
30:09That's just by the way I'm displaying some of the options moving around here.
30:20That is an overall picture of where we stand.
30:24These are the numbers among the presidential initiatives.
30:35Let's see how they line up.
30:36George, is this a figure on revenues?
30:54That seems to me to be a damn modest figure, the 223.
31:00Well, this is an approximation that we'll continue to work on right up to the budget.
31:06It represents the current sort of consensus forecast.
31:11That is something that we can work with.
31:15The 246, full employment.
31:17is right up on the high end of where we think, at least at present prices, you could estimate that figure, but it's still a figure that is .
31:30Well, let me ask you this.
31:31I was always fitted with what Arthur fit.
31:34What's he doing now?
31:36Arthur right now, where I should have
31:41The figures on what the Fed is doing and what is actually happening to the money supply, I don't mind what people say they want to do, it is actually declining.
31:51This is a rate of increase of less than the extravagant levels that we had earlier in the year.
31:57But it is a minus.
31:59It has declined in the last six weeks.
32:02The money supply has been aligned by an actual decline.
32:06And here again we have this
32:08picture, which nobody pictures the pictures, but every time they do that, this chill goes on as it comes.
32:15And that's exactly what happened in late July and August.
32:20They started throwing that money supply down, and we had a pretty strong third quarter.
32:30And that's what they're doing.
32:38Just so you see where the dimensions of those are, the 260, the constant strain 73 contains the whole 8.3 billion.
32:55And as you can see, the bulk of it is general revenue sharing.
32:59And it's really that that needs to be focused on in terms of strategy, depending upon how successful or unsuccessful John is in the energy round.
33:09Well, that is my way of background.
33:12Here are the overall pictures.
33:16And what I'd like to do now is just try to sharpen the policy choices of my first attorney to do these initiatives and try to just state succinctly the nature of that problem.
33:51We haven't had a .
33:57I believe that we should stay very close to it.
34:06All right.
34:12Well, the first question here is the point that I raised, of course, .
34:20Burns is going to play a dominant major avenue in the money spot.
34:26We sure can't do it.
34:28The police are here too.
34:35You know.
34:36Somebody says we better do this.
34:40There is a sense in playing a
34:44very extravagant fiscal policy forces monetary entirety to be extravagant, too, because they're technically going to keep the financial markets afloat.
34:54All right, we've got huge deficits going in there, and they have to, in effect, almost monetize that by buying those trading obligations and keeping them out of the financial markets.
35:08That's, I suppose, what happened in the late 60s.
35:14I'd like to say, I mean, looking at this year, it's a very striking pattern.
35:20In the first and second quarters, we saw an extremely strong private sector move up more than the average, because government was not following it so much.
35:37The third quarter is dominated by government, and private has dropped way off.
35:42And I think my own feeling, anyway, is that there's much more desirable ahead of the expansion of the private economy, and that's basically what you get out of the government's buying process.
35:59Well, now, our first, I think, central question of how to handle these non-active presidential initiatives is certain, as you can see in the background there, that there should be about 8 billion.
36:16These large sums, if they're not enacted, they're too thin to say.
36:22They squeeze the data out of everything else in the budget.
36:28to the extent that you think the overall code is restrained and carrying a flow that is not flexible and it presses everything else.
36:41And the second problem is that they don't represent the true expansiveness of the budget in that they appear to be there, but if they don't get enacted, they don't get spent.
36:52And so the budget is less expensive than it actually appears to be.
36:57And if the number involved is a number as large as $8 billion or so, that's a lot of shortfall in the actual outline.
37:07So I think it constitutes a problem from the standpoint of budget strategies, but of course also constitutes a political problem, too, in how to handle this state of the game.
37:28Or we have our hands full and get it.
37:48to a $246 billion budget, which is the full budget level, that's very hard they can do.
37:55And we have some subsequent questions about how much in the way of the initiative and how tough we need to be.
38:09But if we were to take out
38:12Say, general revenue hearings, what strategy is the fourth one here?
38:16If it isn't an activism conference, I may have made a reason to play out of not enacting it.
38:24declare your dissatisfaction with what you're continuing to support for it and say that since this Congress was passed that you're going to whack them and come back in the next Congress and not include it in your budget.
38:36I mean, it's not an item that the Army doesn't want to act on.
38:40I think what you have to do is you have to make a perfect exploit of your government's form of insurance.
38:47You don't have to leave them on board and prove exactly what happened.
38:56I think on revenue sharing and welfare too.
38:57What we're going to end up with is the issue that you've mentioned where demand is an issue and not long term.
39:09I don't think we can get around this fast and tell us it's no standard or something and all the rest and so forth, but we've got a long, long way to go on that.
39:23And I think in terms of first looking at welfare reform,
39:27If we should get, and that is, but there's less chance of that happening.
39:33It might have some political effect in terms of regulation.
39:38While it's the right thing to do, it's a good program.
39:47Finally, down the road, I think that
39:52It's basically a loser political, or not a gainer, I would put it that way.
39:57I say that in spite of the fact that mayors are for it, governors are for it, and everybody else is for it.
40:03But as far as the average guy is concerned, he doesn't know what the hell it is.
40:08So what I'm getting at is that we have proposed both because we believe in them.
40:13And we have a good issue, and for those constituencies that are interested in it, we will continue to talk about it.
40:20But I think what we have to do is, when you're up against that kind of a thing, the irresistible force that we see moving a lot of these things to do is to relax and enjoy it.
40:32And the way to enjoy it is to make the issue, I mean, you know, raise hell about it, but then go on a new initiative.
40:40We can come up next year, but after all, we have to go through our report one year.
40:42And rather than sharing the next year, let's go down the two.
40:50You say, well, we've got to have something to be done in the investment field.
40:55Well, I'm not so sure we do.
40:58I'm not so sure that that's all that important.
41:01We have a strong economy.
41:03We have a strong economy.
41:04The rest doesn't amount to a damn.
41:06That's what really counts, is the economy.
41:09But the other, the only thing, when I talk about the new initiative business, I am struck by the fact that our, quote, so, quote, so-called, quote, end quote, programs in the domestic field, at best is embedded in my own defensive actions.
41:27They really not made us a hell of a lot of ERs.
41:29If you go down the line and you ask people about programs that we have now,
41:36Now, it might be like this, though I'm not sure.
41:39I don't have the environment.
41:40I think if we hadn't have done that, it might have been a great disadvantage if we hadn't done something like this.
41:50So that's good to do.
41:51But I think as far as revenue sharing and welfare and performance is concerned, except for a few political scientists and mayors and so forth, especially in these groups, and the fact that it gives the impression that you're doing something,
42:05I'm not sure, but basically it means a lot to us if you can grasp what it means.
42:13Now, where I think, right?
42:14Well, just to say, another way you could even put it, President, is if you dropped, at this point, all the credit there is to be done.
42:19Well, we did, and also, if we make the case the way I think it could be made, of putting the monkey right on the conqueror's back and get the hell out of it, all the people that are for it, like Nelson, aren't part of it.
42:29You don't want to kick the butchers of settlement about that shit.
42:32You've got to bring the rest.
42:35They're the ones who are already telling about it.
42:38Welfare reform, quite a hand of people like that.
42:40I tell you, isn't this horrible?
42:42So what I've come to is, frankly, is option four combined with option three.
42:55When I say include them in a new package trying to do taxes,
43:06Maybe there's a way, there's enough to do it.
43:09I'm inclined to think that maybe we've got to go for a new way to get at some of the problems that gnaw.
43:16And frankly, and I really think, John, in terms of your property tax, what do you call it, the value added deal and so forth and so on, which goes really to a gut issue rather than revenue sharing, which doesn't really mean an issue.
43:35and welfare reform pushes.
43:38Frankly, where we look both ways,
43:41where the poor don't think we're giving them enough and making them work, and the people that are against it think we're giving too damn much.
43:51So we don't live in either way with the revenue sharing.
43:55I'm not going to go much as we know that both charges are untrue.
44:00There is a way you can get some of the advantages of both, Mr. President.
44:04On the rearrangement of the dates, you can present a budget that still asks for revenue sharing,
44:10And it saves 2.8, 2.9 billion off the planning levels right now, which would free quite a lot.
44:17And at the same time, it would go and parachute it.
44:20So what you do is you make the first quarterly dispersal is on the day of the next quarter, instead of within.
44:27You get down to two quarters within the fiscal year.
44:29And then if you postpone the effective date one more quarter, because Congress obviously is going to enact it by January, you get another billion, too.
44:37So you could display on the budget still asking for revenue sharing, general revenue sharing, but regular now you don't want to... What do you think, Pat Catton, would prefer not to have a budget without anything in it?
44:48I think it would be a little hard to back that far away from it.
44:52Is there any way you could put it in and say we ask for it for next year?
44:56Well, this would be almost that.
44:58You'd be saving out of... That would appear to be too damn...
45:01We're carrying the target for every mayor and governor in this country.
45:05This is such a phony approach.
45:08The only way to do this is to say, I've had it up there now for umpty umpty months.
45:14You people haven't done anything about it.
45:18I'm not going to stand here and continue to bathe.
45:25You're adults, human beings, you've had a chance to do this, the needs are out there in cities and in the farms, and you go look at it, you don't know about it.
45:33I'm not going to ask you again.
45:34I'm taking it out on my own.
45:37That's another way to do it.
45:41That is a clear advantage.
45:42The advantage of doing an attack is also what's happened to the odds.
45:47Oh, sure.
45:48I think it looks like it's bookkeeping.
45:51It isn't really, well, the way I'm proposing it, in the sense that you would still be poor, but you'd be recognizing the actual dollar would not be $5 billion as we have been carrying.
46:01We've been carrying it a full year.
46:03We won't have it a full year, and $2.4, $2.7 we could carry in the budget as being the Senate's value.
46:10Well, let me ask this question, John.
46:12What about the, is there an alternative, which says, all right, we drop it.
46:19Yes, that's my proposal.
46:20What is your proposal?
46:21That you stand up and drop it.
46:23That you stand up and say, I've had it up here.
46:26I think it was the way to work this out.
46:28But then what do you offer in its place?
46:31You don't offer anything in its place.
46:35And then you say, we're going to make an issue about it.
46:37We're going to make an issue about it.
46:38We're going to the country on this, and we're going to get a Congress.
46:40You could say it was fair.
46:41You could be dishonest, too.
46:42But now, my point is, though, what I'm thinking is somewhat different, well, maybe related terms.
46:49I would drop that.
46:51But then I'd go on the poverty tax relief.
46:54But the only credible way you can go on that, in my opinion, is to raise taxes and take it to education.
47:01That's great, but for that, that speaks to the same issue.
47:05Well, it does in a way.
47:07That's right.
47:08And you can argue that you're freeing up so much local money that people can now take care of it themselves.
47:14But that, you see, you're caught on the horns of the dilemma there.
47:18Because then what you're saying is that instead of the property taxes coming down, they ought to stay at the same level and the local governments ought to use that revenue for some of these local problems.
47:30I think you're in a stronger campaign position to say education soaks up all these taxes.
47:38We're going to pay for education this other way.
47:40Therefore, local taxes can actually be reduced by so many dollars in this town where I'm speaking tonight.
47:48The operating word is can be reduced.
47:51Is there a way of forcing travel?
47:54There's a way, but it's not a very good one.
47:56It puts it right on their back.
47:58You could get the worst of both of them.
48:01You could get higher federal taxes.
48:03That'd be horrible.
48:04And no guarantee of... Let me say, Captain, I am inclined to say this.
48:12I think that our council is putting this in the budget
48:17Frankly, the shortest of budgets.
48:19We were talking about Georgia's budget, about a full-fledged budget, an expansive budget.
48:24God damn it, it is an expansive budget.
48:26If you've got $5 billion, it's going to be expensive.
48:31Now, the same thing, and I think it also raises hopes for these local governments and so forth that we do not fulfill these bans.
48:39There's an aspect of this, though, that I think we're overlooking.
48:41One is, we have no control.
48:46over whether the revenue sharing is adopted or not.
48:51The public interest groups are going to keep the pressure on them because their interests and ours just have to be coincidental at the moment.
48:56So they're going to keep the heat on up there.
49:01If Wilbur Mills once got a whip of the possibility that we were going to take this out of the budget and lay the woods again, he'd pop it out of that committee on the 14th of November.
49:12All right, suppose we take it out of the budget, then he might put it in the next session of Congress.
49:18I'm not so sure.
49:19As soon as he knows you don't want it, he's for it.
49:23Well, I don't think you've got the words to vote for him.
49:27No, I wouldn't say that.
49:28To me, that's a veto.
49:29Obviously, we're not going to say anything about any decision.
49:36If not here, we continue to push for revenue sharing right through to whenever Congress adjourns.
49:42They adjourned and they haven't done it.
49:44This is all based on that assumption.
49:47And it isn't only this year that we've had residential sharing up there.
49:53We had it up last year and we had it up way back whenever that was.
49:57So then they have an active and we come in with a budget that's different now, right?
50:05And if they go ahead and enact it,
50:08Well, well and good.
50:10It doesn't, it violates our budget, and you'd have to decide whether you're going to sign it or not.
50:17It would be pretty hard not to sign it if it's in line with your original recommendation.
50:25But we have put forward a credible budget that meets the fiscal responsibility that you've laid out, and if we get a little bit more expansion,
50:37At that time of the year, fine.
50:39It's not going to hurt, Senator.
50:42I don't think...
50:44In other words, if they do that, I'm not so sure.
50:47Well, let's... Is option four yours?
50:49Yes, sir.
50:51Except I wouldn't lay it over to the next Congress.
50:55I would just make a flat, categorical amendment.
51:01And Wes dropped the other shoe and said I'm going to ask for it again in the next Congress.
51:06What did you do it?
51:07Stayed in here.
51:09Oh!
51:09Wait a minute, wait a minute.
51:11Hold on.
51:11No, no.
51:11No, sir.
51:11Well, you keep the heat on them in this.
51:12Oh, we're on the same track.
51:14I dragged them right up through the 15th of November when they got home.
51:17And then I just say we're going to make an agonizing re-appraisal and we're going to put it on this thing.
51:21Oh, I am for that.
51:22I just feel myself that it's just not right to keep it up there and say this is too damn bad.
51:30This Congress is... Every piece of paper that comes out of Katz's office for the next two months ought to have it in there for the next year.
51:43Yeah, maybe.
51:46Keep a double set of books if you do anyway.
51:48We're just going to have to shift over until after they go home.
51:52Do that, Cap.
51:53Believe me, I really mean to keep a double set of books.
51:56And if somebody gets in your office, whoever you think leaves, I'm sure you have some.
52:01We have some.
52:01Fine.
52:02Just give them the other set of books and let them leave.
52:06Well, we can...
52:07But I feel, George, that it's the only honest thing to do, and I feel that way.
52:10And I'm just, frankly, to hear what they've done.
52:12You know, the reason that I put up with it, John, and the campus politicians, I go out, you know, and I have a press conference, or I go out, and I sell the things, the questions, and everybody gets a statement, you know.
52:21And I make a speech, and I say, you know, I know I'm speaking to them on Friday, and I'm just going to do it.
52:34and then I can't some conventions because I know they aren't going to pass.
52:38You know what I mean?
52:41I just don't...
52:41I just... What I meant is...
52:44I think Joe's point about asking for a Congress that will pass it, meanwhile not showing it, is a very good one.
52:50I think it's difficult to abandon an idea that's been pushed so strongly, but I think you can certainly justify taking it out of the budget and doing it with an attack on Congress.
52:59Okay, I'll just go submit it to the next Congress.
53:01Well, I'm not so sure I really know that far.
53:04I think you could make the argument that this Congress apparently has no sense of urgency.
53:10In the last year, they've taken so many days vacation.
53:14The Democratic leadership apparently doesn't care about the cities and the poor and the blacks and the school children and the rural areas.
53:22And until this chamber is filled with a Congress that does,
53:26Revenue's time, or Sharon's time, has not come.
53:30You wouldn't say that to the State of the Union.
53:37What?
53:37I wouldn't.
53:37You might not.
53:39I mean, next year?
53:41Now, if that's the sense of what I meant, I would commit to reintroducing it again.
53:45Oh, I agree.
53:46But leave an answer.
53:49you might very well give it to them.
53:51And if that's the case, then I think we ought to be prepared to haul out whatever's in the budget in its place.
53:56Because the worst of all worlds, I've always felt, is to not get this and get the money spent for something else, and then come back and get any one of the number of things where you have to do both.
54:08And the whole idea of it was to get a different way of financing something.
54:17Thanks.
54:17I made it.
54:19Well, there are, but there's smoke too.
54:23Before you get into this, before you leave this.
54:37He hasn't had a prayer in about an extra year.
54:42No, that's totally well heard.
54:45He hasn't had a prayer.
54:47We can't at least kill ourselves, John.
54:49Long, long, I talk to him, you know.
54:55So, uh...
54:57So what do we do with that for sure?
54:59Well, I think you have to budget a certain amount, because by the time this budget comes out, I think a new strategy will be added.
55:09For us or them?
55:10Well, it depends on who them are.
55:13I think that there will be a long-benefit deal, and it will be anti-Rivikov, and those lines will be drawn, and your budget should reflect your support of the long-benefit position.
55:28which will be a modified welfare fund, and much less costly than this fiscal year will not be.
55:37You know, there's something I think that's going to increase in the fact that there's 80,000 new federal employees, and that's a question of priority.
55:45This goes to that.
55:46This goes to that.
55:47Well, that's the present estimate for what HR1 will cost, isn't it?
55:52We want full family assistance.
55:55It's a question I get at the meetings.
55:57We could get by with safe contracts on this long-vent approach and show practically no therapy.
56:06I'm convinced that's what we ought to do, and I think also it's a safer way to go at it.
56:14Well, I'm just afraid to punch that deep in the water.
56:16Long's got his price, but it's all sorts of things.
56:19He's got a whole reticule full of, you know, odds and ends that he's peddling.
56:25And he now has to sit down with John Conlon to sit through some of this stuff.
56:32I got up there to talk to him the first time.
56:34I discovered that the Louisiana sugar cane growers were in trouble with the Across the Woodland Council.
56:41We weren't going anywhere with any of them.
56:43We got that son of a bitch.
56:45It's just one damn thing after another.
56:46It's the only thing in the Across the Woodland Council collaboration where a political pressure has made it too much easier than it has been.
57:02I'm glad you did.
57:03The first time I saw him, he had his own club in the sheriff's.
57:09And I went to talk to him about the staff again.
57:12And I said, I know what you're here for, Mr. Secretary.
57:16You want your own club in the sheriff's, but I'll tell you how you met.
57:22You're closing down the Job Corps Center.
57:29You keep that open, and you'll get your unemployment insurance.
57:36You'll close it, and I'll pick you the wagon to work with.
57:42But we closed it.
57:46He's a hot number.
57:50Well, if we have...
57:53approach on general revenue sharing or on the revenue sharing issue.
57:58These other initiatives we can play as they come along.
58:02But that would be safe to have an approach on both.
58:05I think you should figure the budget both ways.
58:07I think we ought to flush that through, sure.
58:10And I think we also want to, if you've got any on that, I think an awesome welfare reform.
58:15I would go for the Mickey Mouse bill.
58:17Or just basically a Mickey Mouse experimental bill.
58:21That's what we have to do.
58:22That's something at least.
58:25And also, it's a safer way to get at the thing, in my view.
58:28I have some...
58:30serious doubts about, not doubts about, about if I had more faith in what people thought it would work, but I'm just not sure it's going to work.
58:40And we better try a few places.
58:44Maybe we better try.
58:45I'm not sure that the three experiments you have right now.
58:48I'm not sure.
58:54So what?
58:55Could we, I think you ought to put the button on it.
58:57Now, how do we then present that to the public?
58:59How do we present it to the public in terms of say, on the welfare reform?
59:03Well, we had to talk to the Congress because they wouldn't give us the rest, but it's a good program.
59:08We're going to give people work and so forth and so on.
59:12On the revenue, I think I'd be totally honest to say the Congress has been on that.
59:17So in order to get a part of the problem, I'd like to work on this other field.
59:23Here's another way to get at this problem.
59:26In other words, it isn't really a problem.
59:29In view of the fact that education is such a hell of a fight,
59:33for as part of every budget.
59:35I think, what if you buy this, Ken?
59:37Well, if you could do, I'm, property tax reform that would relieve local tax loans with education expenses.
59:42I'm 100% for that.
59:44The only thing I'd like to try to do would be to get a guarantee to cut the property taxes in order to get it.
59:49And that's awfully hard to do.
59:51Without it, you run the risk of higher federal and local taxes.
59:54And that's the real problem we have so long in California.
59:58Well, how about giving them a program that does it?
1:00:03are we attacking the quorum?
1:00:07I mean, which, uh, which, uh, which, uh, give our voters some kind of action?
1:00:13Yes, we are.
1:00:13Well, we can.
1:00:15Uh, the, the thing we're running into here, we've been marching around for almost three years saying that we ought to make these decisions to stay in local government.
1:00:25Yeah.
1:00:25And that they're competent to make these decisions in the long run.
1:00:27Yeah.
1:00:28And the federal bureaucracy is trying to be involved, and the Congress should stay out of their business, and so on and so forth.
1:00:33Yeah, well, that's the problem.
1:00:35And I think the reason we originally put this together was so that they had to lower their property taxes in order to get this better money.
1:00:49I was swayed by the argument that really what we're doing is we're stepping in the shoes of the city councils and the county commissioners and telling them what to do at the local level.
1:01:00I think that the first suggestion is saying this is another way of the same problem.
1:01:04This is revenue sharing in a sense.
1:01:07Because we're freeing up all this local money.
1:01:12is an interesting approach, because now, here's this money that they're not any longer spending on education, and they can decide at a lower level what they want to do.
1:01:21They can have lower taxes, they can buy policemen, they can raise, you know, the... Yeah, we don't have to decide that now, but they, as I understand,
1:01:33That, however, that initiative, which we cannot, have not yet come through, that initiative cannot be implemented without another tax.
1:01:44That's correct.
1:01:44That's my, essentially my worry, that you're raising federal taxes without a guarantee that you're going to get a corresponding job.
1:01:49You've got to hope.
1:01:51And a hope, I'm afraid, is really not going to happen.
1:01:55I don't think it's such a local, it appears to be a local rule, if you say, here's some money, and what you have to do to get it is to cut your local tax.
1:02:01It doesn't tell us how to cut it.
1:02:03But it is in an interest of the taxpayer type moment, really.
1:02:06And this was the thing we, my views on this, I'm sure, are colored by the long fight we had in California, in which we rejected twice democratic legislative plans that were just like, let's give more education money, and of course they'll have to cut lower their taxes.
1:02:21And they've never done it.
1:02:22This was actually the argument when the sales tax was put in in 1931.
1:02:25After you vote for the sales tax, we'll cut property taxes.
1:02:28I'm not so sure of that.
1:02:35If you could get education with customers in federal government.
1:02:38I don't believe in responsibility in some way.
1:02:55I mean, if we do all this, there would be no guarantee of any property tax relief.
1:03:00That's right.
1:03:00That's one way to go.
1:03:01No, I wouldn't be for that.
1:03:03I don't think it's suitable.
1:03:08You can do it the other way.
1:03:16Well, you can or you shouldn't.
1:03:32put them in the same bag, and at that time, enable us to make some reductions in some of the programs that were to be pulled into special revenue sharing.
1:03:41By doing that, in effect, we put a fence around the amount.
1:03:44We said the programs aren't good.
1:03:45We're going to give the dollars to local governments to do what they want.
1:03:49And that, in effect, constrained us from making any reductions in those programs.
1:03:54If we were to take the same course in special
1:03:56If we did it with general revenue sharing, we could then perhaps make some reductions in some of the model cities and urban renewal and things like that that are fixed at the present time with special revenue sharing.
1:04:07If that's the way you want it.
1:04:09Well, I sure want to require any method you can get for reducing model cities and some of that stuff.
1:04:14Thank you.
1:04:17Do you mean that?
1:04:19Why don't you?
1:04:20Well, because of all of the heat you get, you get all of the flack, you get all of the light.
1:04:25Isn't that what special revenue sharing is all about?
1:04:27Sure.
1:04:28Special revenue sharing is a mask for that.
1:04:30You take none of the heat.
1:04:32That's what I meant.
1:04:33Yeah, but if you dismantle special revenue sharing, as Kat was suggesting, and just go in and say we're going to block 25% off model cities,
1:04:40No, you'll never get it.
1:04:42You'll never get it through the Congress, and you'll catch Mary L. from every mayor that's got a Model 6 program, and all the urban societies, and all the governors, and everybody.
1:04:50But you know what?
1:04:51We're tying up quite a lot of money in the budget that Special Regents are sharing, as we are with General Regents.
1:04:57I don't know that we have any more hope of getting it than we do General Regents.
1:05:01Well, all I'm saying is... What about Special Regents, Sheriff?
1:05:03What about the hope of getting some of it?
1:05:06You'll get one or two of them.
1:05:07I don't think you'll get most of it.
1:05:10And if you're going to be honest about it, you just simply don't learn.
1:05:13It's hard to... What are your feelings about special emissions?
1:05:17No, I leave that in place just because it is our position on issues like public cities for the same device in this world.
1:05:27Mind you, mind you, it's about money.
1:05:29Mind you, when I talk about revenue sharing,
1:05:33It's frankly about general revenue sharing.
1:05:35My view about special revenue sharing is that it's a damn sound program because it is a way and a device through which, I haven't heard the first word that comes to my mind, but it is a device through which you can sustain a lot of model systems.
1:05:52A budget posture on this could be to continue special revenue sharing in the budget.
1:06:00In view of the fact that Congress has typically raised the appropriations of these various complex programs this past year, that we consider those programs forwarded as funded and don't add the sweetener on the sweetener.
1:06:18Well, the other thing you can do, I agree with that, the other thing you can do is to eliminate education special revenue.
1:06:39and fold it into this new initiative, and you pick up about, I don't know, a hundred or six billion dollars or something like that.
1:06:49Well, you can say you're going to raise the money for all federal primary and secondary education programs from value-added.
1:06:55And so that's about six billion dollars that you take out of your budget and you put over in the value-added conditions.
1:07:12That's a basic question that you're going to have to face, is where do you want to go with the tax amount?
1:07:19If you do, then you've got all that education money that can come out of the side of your budget that you have now.
1:07:29Because if they don't enact the tax, you should never get away without having a federal education now.
1:07:34Well, that you can have, but it doesn't
1:07:42It doesn't do to your budgeting what this $1.9 billion does to your budgeting.
1:07:45That's the point here.
1:07:48This combination of $5.1 and $1.9 here is just...
1:07:50I'm not sure that the value added approaches all of that.
1:07:56What's up?
1:07:57What's up?
1:08:02What's up?
1:08:06What's up?
1:08:12The reason I think you could sell is that the courts are one by one holding that these state school support programs, district by district, are unconstitutional.
1:08:28And so the states are right up against the crisis.
1:08:31They're having governor's seminars and the state budget directors are having seminars and they're beginning to analyze how to get out of this pickle.
1:08:40And you're going to be a knight on a white horse if you come along in January.
1:08:44You're way out of the way of whips.
1:08:45I don't know if I'd always be the governor.
1:08:50No, no.
1:08:50To the people of the state who are now beginning to already read about a statewide real property tax in the state of California.
1:09:02Please do.
1:09:03Sure.
1:09:03But, you know, the rates are going to be higher.
1:09:06Probably.
1:09:08Well, the legislature enacted a new statewide real property tax, and the rates turned out lower in the Americas.
1:09:16Well, it substituted for a local problem.
1:09:18Well, anyway, I think there's a lot going for it.
1:09:26Whether or not you guarantee that local taxes will be reduced, I don't want to advocate it.
1:09:42But typically, don't be concerned about the need to prove that local governments are responsible and they know their needs and all that sort of thing.
1:09:56At this point though, more importantly,
1:10:04Let me ask this.
1:10:08You say that Fishinger says that .775
1:10:33Do you think that's enough?
1:10:37Well, I don't think so.
1:10:38Well, what we've done here, sir, is to go down to what we considered to be an absolute top five.
1:10:45Now, that involves some fairly heroic steps.
1:10:58which we feel would have to be dictated by here, by the White House, and not just a level cut in the past, because I am not doing that, and we'll end up suffering in our structure.
1:11:10What we're really talking about is the reduction in the number of ladies in our sites by two thirds.
1:11:17This year, it has a population raised in the eight.
1:11:23You don't even know.
1:11:2440% cut in interceptor air traffic, right?
1:11:26And a conserved economy in the United States, our site's down from 12 to 4, which is a very real thing to do in a congressional election in the great nation.
1:11:38You can't go above that.
1:11:43Then in addition to that, we added two additional deductions, two wings that we cut out of tactical air, which was a great defense plan.
1:11:51We would like to take it out of the Navy, because that's the cost of excess package.
1:11:58But through that, you have to reduce carriers, and you don't have to afford to let's do it big.
1:12:09Whatever we do on our structures, sir, it will keep it just about what we talked about in the NSCB.
1:12:15We have 13 Army divisions.
1:12:16We have three Marine divisions at full strength instead of 3D, which I'm not even aware of the program.
1:12:29We keep our 16 carriers.
1:12:31And we've had 12 Navy Airwings, three Marine Airwings.
1:12:34We've built 21 and a third to 19 and a third.
1:12:38Air Force fighter planes.
1:12:41So this is cold turkey in the air defense area.
1:12:43Frankly, I'm not concerned about it in the sense that we've told them they're living with a structure that they haven't really investigated properly and we'll give them alternatives.
1:12:56In that sense, that's where the cuffs came from.
1:13:04What about this?
1:13:04What does that do to the hair?
1:13:06What does that do?
1:13:07That probably requires support from some patients.
1:13:12Well, so we haven't...
1:13:13Some of these 90 studies have swung a little vertical.
1:13:16I don't think they represent much of an economic impact.
1:13:26Politically, there's a lot to be done about post-invasions in clinical states, anti-invasions in prisons.
1:13:34I don't think that I understand this program.
1:13:42None of that has been contemplated at all in the last few years.
1:13:47Let me ask you now, maybe, in terms of the economy of Jersey, is it best to add a couple of billion dollars to a place like California?
1:14:02It's just putting in cold turkey, and we talk about putting more into cesspools and model cities and the rest.
1:14:12If you're going to go for government expansionary budget, having in mind the fact that we could also very well use this as the bargaining position, having in mind, in fact, also the oil will be quite a problem.
1:14:24We've got to yank about something.
1:14:30Well, we have useful things that we feel are necessary to do, and it's made us the obligation to find a way to do it.
1:14:51If it is wasted, it is wasted.
1:15:00I think there are all sorts of things in other parts of the budget that we can do.
1:15:08It's no problem to find a place that's got the money.
1:15:12Yeah, yeah, I know, but I sort of always have had the impression that the net spending seems to be the most effective form of a return.
1:15:24Certainly a hell of a lot more than model cities.
1:15:27If that were to be the decision, I would hope that it could be matched by a decision that we could take down some other area so that we would still keep the whole point of balance and increase the fence if that may go by by reducing some other areas rather than build both of them.
1:15:46And it ought to be for spending that can be done quickly and that will reach the economy.
1:15:53Certainly, your ideas about the tactical area,
1:15:57They do, but they've been absolutely a tough one, sir.
1:16:06We're bringing Abby to these issues, and I'm scared that we'll finish in ten days.
1:16:15What about Packard?
1:16:19Packard?
1:16:24Larry, why don't we keep all that and add some more to it?
1:16:44What's he want to add?
1:16:48Well, the additions, I think, are primarily the additional label vessel.
1:16:51There's probably one or a couple more magnets in there.
1:16:57He was mentioned in the casket meeting the other day.
1:17:06You know, a lot of these people have laid off.
1:17:08He's got a few of his friends here on Facebook, and that's a person you all know.
1:17:17But you know, we put a block on that in California, and as a matter of fact, they're beefed up.
1:17:23We've got expenditures in California in order to save enough jobs.
1:17:31So there's not just a whole lot more that you could do collectively in California that we're already programming to do.
1:17:43That's for sure.
1:17:46Pretty slow spin.
1:17:47Well, see, that's a real timeline.
1:17:49I know, I'm just trying to be very...
1:17:52They really rang out, the Flanagan's guys, in conjunction with it being from defense and from law, analyzed everything that was quick and plump, where they brought the most jobs in the shortest time.
1:18:08I saw that.
1:18:09I don't think it's that.
1:18:12Well, I think it's the answer to the question, you know, could we do more in California if we spent more of the investment?
1:18:18The kinds of things that you can do to create jobs in a year, let's say, are relatively limited.
1:18:25There's no budgetary constraint to put on that episode.
1:18:32All right, I can take three more questions.
1:18:34This figure also visualizes the...
1:18:42That's very realistic.
1:18:50Very realistic.
1:18:53That could be a hell of a lot less than 100.
1:19:01I think...
1:19:02I wanted to get it out because our bargaining position is then compromised.
1:19:05But I think that this is one place where CAF is going to have some money that we didn't expect to have on the crisis evidence.
1:19:13We've been saying that for a long time.
1:19:18You've also taken into account the sole possibility...
1:19:20Yes, sir.
1:19:21That's why we... Is that why you have to retain the foresight?
1:19:25Huh?
1:19:25We have to retain the foresight.
1:19:28No, but I mean...
1:19:30that we would recoup from there if we get an EPS one.
1:19:39That would be always wrong.
1:19:41Maybe I'm bad, but I'm not bad.
1:19:43No, I mean, if we get, if we got a, if that developed that way, and it held zero sites, if we held the two, we'll get two recoupments.
1:19:53George, what do you think, though, about what you've once spoken about, the defense payout?
1:19:57You're very good.
1:19:57I think it's a wonderful experience.
1:20:00It's been a healthy time.
1:20:05Thank you.
1:20:08I'm just spending as much as there is to spend, and no more.
1:20:14There are many ways to spend money elsewhere.
1:20:17Well, Al, is this enough?
1:20:20I mean, I understand, I do know a lot of them, but don't talk about all this balancing and so forth.
1:20:24Is this enough to...
1:20:27the credibility of our defenses at this time that we're running with China and Russia and all that.
1:20:30I think we've got two problems.
1:20:31One of them is a real problem, and one of them is part of our military policy.
1:20:35I don't think it's enough, of course.
1:20:36Yeah, but I think this is in front of the area that we have to guide, to some extent, our organization and the Russian people.
1:20:47I don't think it's near enough.
1:20:51Where are the two corporate increases?
1:20:54The Army don't have those terms, right?
1:20:57It's modernized, no shift.
1:20:59You know what I mean?
1:21:00It's modernization, not maintainable.
1:21:02Not that account.
1:21:03We do that, George.
1:21:03I'm for that.
1:21:04Well, I would say that we have to think about it.
1:21:09First, it's a question of the economy, the impact on the economy.
1:21:17And I bet
1:21:24discussed in terms of the budget as a whole, that what we want is a budget more expensive than, say, a full fund account.
1:21:34We want to go well at the desk and have a full fund payment.
1:21:38That's essentially the issue as far as the economy is concerned for the budget.
1:21:44Now, the issue of where exactly you spend it is secondary from the standpoint of the impact on the economy.
1:21:53It might be in the back or it might be elsewhere, depending upon...
1:21:57where you want to target and who is able to spend it right.
1:22:02And that's one.
1:22:04The second issue is how much money do we need to spend on this to achieve the foreign policy and security goals that you have.
1:22:13And that is what we try to determine.
1:22:17Not to be obsessive about it, but that is the number that we try to come up with.
1:22:23And that is the 77.5
1:22:25or in that range somewhere.
1:22:27It seems to me, where it was in the Executive Office of the President, our analysis says we can get along on that.
1:22:37All right.
1:22:39The third issue, which I have a good way of explaining myself, but I can see that it's a very important issue here, is the political issue, and that is
1:22:53There are times when it seems as though the good politics is the guy who's got the defense budget and has the means to serve himself and all that kind of stuff.
1:23:03There are other times when it seems that the good politics is the person who's providing a strong defense.
1:23:10And I would interpret what Secretary Larry is doing.
1:23:13as switching sides on the kitchen.
1:23:16He was a cutter for quite a while, and I personally don't think that he is focusing, and particularly from the standpoint of the content of that cutter, he is posturing himself as a
1:23:34strong defense stands.
1:23:36Financials thinking about Jackson.
1:23:38Jackson.
1:23:39That is, that is what, it's a political move.
1:23:45And I suppose there you see this whole cosmetic thing that we could take 77.5 and we could make 80 billion out of it by outlay management, just as we could also bring it down.
1:23:57and leave the content the same.
1:23:59He's also got, of course, from the standpoint of trying to develop a budget going back to the first chart that we had and getting over here into the third column where we have a chance to get full employment balance and he also has some room to move around and to look for new initiatives here or not.
1:24:20not do such a job on existing programs that we get into basically a powerful black on all these other things that we need to get down into this 76 billion dollar range for defense.
1:24:33And we can't get there.
1:24:35And we have to go up over 80.
1:24:37We are in very tough shape to get into these full points of balance here.
1:24:45And that's our problem.
1:24:47But if I were
1:24:50from our analysis, and from listening to Al and Henry and everybody, that 77.5 was an irresponsible leverage as far as defense is concerned.
1:25:04I would be here for a minute talking about it, because I think that is number one.
1:25:09No, I'm going to want to answer that question.
1:25:12This is a question for you to look at.
1:25:16with this fairly decisive cut in air defense and provision that we can dictate the main components of what the flare must provide to prevent it from distorting the weapon.
1:25:31With that, we think we've got a fairly sound plan.
1:25:37How are you going to do it?
1:25:38Well, we have a lot of ideas about how to write that system.
1:25:42We're in a position where every department of the government has had fiscal guidance, except the Senate.
1:25:48They've created their own, and theirs is sort of off and running.
1:25:52And there's no rain on it.
1:25:56But I think we have to write that carefully, and it's our community.
1:26:01He is right in terms of the things that he must have.
1:26:05He must have certain innovations.
1:26:09He must have three full marine divisions and so on.
1:26:11Because their typical ploy, when they get a number, is to cut way back on those things that they know we've got to have.
1:26:18And that just forces him into it.
1:26:22We do also have a...
1:26:24We have our OMB Defense Department joint budget review going on.
1:26:30We're doing all of that traditional things.
1:26:33We have a side exercise that Henry and David packed and worked out after the NFC meeting.
1:26:42Where we have three people are Wendy Smith on the NFC staff.
1:26:48And Ken Dam on the OMB staff.
1:26:54going through a particular issue.
1:26:58And they have gone through it there, and they pretty much come down on recommending to you this sort of thing.
1:27:09and that exercise can carry along and help point out this air defense problem.
1:27:14But I think we have to take a very strong, firm position and be explicit and give the Secretary his marching orders.
1:27:23I think the way to do that is better if it does not come so much from you.
1:27:30It is when Henry gets back.
1:27:31What we'd like to do, sir, is complete this process and finish it within ten days.
1:27:35When we get to Packer, we will have a chance to try it in his kitchen.
1:27:40When Henry gets back, Henry and you, you know, we're going to have to sit up for the Packers and players.
1:27:47Here he is.
1:27:47I'm going to put him on the beat.
1:27:52I think it's very important that Laird not be able to be in the position when she got mail where he says the budget is going to determine the defense, rather than the defense determine it.
1:28:04That's why I want Kissinger in the lead.
1:28:06See the point?
1:28:07And NSC isn't going to let Kissinger take the key.
1:28:12So it's not simply a budget decision.
1:28:15You see the point, Al?
1:28:16Yes, sir.
1:28:16I would agree with that, and I don't feel it is a budget thing in the sense that we have said we must make room in this budget for what is necessary to defend our congressional rule.
1:28:31We do.
1:28:32I don't really notice this third paragraph on the page here, but
1:28:38That is a way to get the Secretary off the hook.
1:28:42Because we have high obligational, the obligational terms are running way up there above .
1:28:49Yeah, I put in obligational 30 million, so you've got an $80 million budget.
1:28:53On the other hand, the spending will be about 25 million.
1:28:58I don't think anybody in the budget, at least none of these people, to the humor point, have the slightest feeling that any domestic program or anything else is worthwhile if the borders aren't safe and we don't have enough strength.
1:29:10So we start from that, but there is still some areas, as Al said, for directing the funds in a way that's good.
1:29:17John, what's your feeling about this budget?
1:29:21Do you know what I mean about the issue of, you know, your friend Jackson and so forth?
1:29:28I would, yeah, I wonder whether Laird really takes Jackson seriously.
1:29:32I find to think he's more under pressure from his side than he is responding to him.
1:29:38I think Laird tends to try to broker with his people.
1:29:42As human resources are a better person, we may have been talking about that.
1:29:53Well, they don't have a, it was an argument last year, maybe the year before, because they were closed.
1:30:03By this time, the HEW funded by itself.
1:30:05Far out of this, not much they can spend on behalf of them, but they have some money to figure.
1:30:12That's cutting it bigger and bigger and bigger.
1:30:16That would speak very well to the crisis.
1:30:24Maybe we go ahead and go down and get up.
1:30:27I understand.
1:30:29Well, the idea, the idea, the idea of the cut and so forth, as you know, Al, and the briefing we had, because I raised it on several occasions.
1:30:39And every time I raise it, they just blend and say, oh, well, you can't do anything about that.
1:30:46But now anybody who's got any goddamn brains at all knows the Soviet Union
1:30:55That didn't matter.
1:30:55He got his jacket.
1:30:56No one was going to send some aircraft in on a strike on the United States of America for Christ's sake.
1:31:05They're not going to do it.
1:31:07We can strike back in 15 seconds or whatever it is, 30 seconds, 20 seconds.
1:31:11Isn't that correct?
1:31:13The whole idea of having a lot of interceptors there ready to take out these bombers, and then they say, oh, yeah, but they're building bombs.
1:31:20What is it about?
1:31:21It's probably about China.
1:31:25It may not be about us.
1:31:29They'll make all sorts of arguments, but the flyboys, you know, it's a funny thing.
1:31:34They've got to realize in regard to this, they're going very quickly the way the battleship wants them to.
1:31:41And it's sad, but it has to be true.
1:31:45And we've got terrible redundancies.
1:31:50We do have some.
1:31:51For Christ's sakes, we're so goddamn redundant that we find now that as I understand it, 80% of the truck kills are made by these, you know, two-engine planes, reconverted cargo planes, right?
1:32:04And all those super jet boys are up there, you know, getting air medals for dropping them out in the jungles.
1:32:13You say that a lot.
1:32:14And when you ask the question about the level of spending, my main problem with certain pieces of political history is they're not monitored.
1:32:19I personally think we're in a hell of a lot of underwhelming situations, given the statistics.
1:32:23So am I.
1:32:24Okay.
1:32:26The strategic evidence.
1:32:28Well, assuming we've got a SALT agreement, we still have it.
1:32:31I think so.
1:32:32I think we're going to get something that will be right on the balance of being distinctive throughout this attack.
1:32:42On SALT?
1:32:44What do you think should be done about the budget?
1:32:47Yeah, but on the other hand, we get the right kind of
1:33:00We don't know what kind of assault we're going to get, Senator.
1:33:05That's right, Senator.
1:33:06On the other hand, I assume that this whole budget that we're going to go forward does hold on America.
1:33:13Yes, it does.
1:33:14It helps a little bit.
1:33:18It helps a little, but it doesn't help if they're not the first strike.
1:33:23Yeah, because America is retaliatory, right?
1:33:30Yeah, but if you get an unsolved, so that you get an agreement, you mean you don't think the agreement is on the edge?
1:33:37I think it's on the edge.
1:33:39And allowing them a first strike given the whole thing?
1:33:41No.
1:33:41No, I didn't say that far yet, sir.
1:33:45They'd have to have quite a bit for a first strike down.
1:33:48Wouldn't they?
1:33:51They have to go considerably farther.
1:33:54But also, when you stop to think about the strike, the first strike thing, when you look at narrative,
1:34:00That's got to be one hell of a determination.
1:34:07And a great number that you get through.
1:34:09What do you think we ought to do?
1:34:13Do you want to get going on some more?
1:34:17No, let's assume we don't get it.
1:34:19So we don't get solar energy.
1:34:20What would you do then?
1:34:23Next year?
1:34:23I definitely can't do it.
1:34:27Yeah, but what?
1:34:28To what?
1:34:29A minute and a half?
1:34:31What the hell?
1:34:32I have a problem with boats.
1:34:34Polaris and a minute and a half.
1:34:36Well, they don't give us first strike.
1:34:40Is that what we're looking at?
1:34:42Are they trying to balance that?
1:34:44Well, I see.
1:34:45Never.
1:34:51But you may, in fact, when you really think of the present time, you feel we need more men and men and more players in order to deter the first strike.
1:35:00Is that it?
1:35:03But you don't think we should do it now?
1:35:05We don't think so.
1:35:05Because I can.
1:35:06In the first place, I don't think the Congress would stand for it, second price, and raise hell for the Soviet Union.
1:35:15That's what it's about.
1:35:15The way we have to consider this next year is that it's all on the Soviet Union.
1:35:25Oh, absolutely.
1:35:28We're not going to get a stall on Cove, Al.
1:35:32We're not going to make a deal.
1:35:36It's going to be a close deal, but we'll go ahead with Merv.
1:35:52I don't like that.
1:35:56Hell, I think it goes to the creditors.
1:36:02We're the murderers, the war-mongers.
1:36:08Mr. President, coming back to the first... All right, this is fine, Mr. President.
1:36:11We've done what you want to do.
1:36:13But remember, if you have the meeting, it should be gun-polled with land.
1:36:17I want Henry sitting there now, you sitting there, and he lays it right out, big.
1:36:22And Henry has got the power.
1:36:25And also that I'll come in when it's necessary.
1:36:27Because I feel so strongly that, I agree with you, that that air is not the place to be.
1:36:36Eric Kennedy better couldn't graduate as many people.
1:36:42And football people feel as we are.
1:36:47We have three additional...
1:36:50question one having to do with how much do we need for new initiatives and the second having to do with how tough should we be instead of the existing programs and the third having to do with testing you out on veto drafts and I would say that going back to this broad table when we started this
1:37:15that with these two decisions, we're definitely in the third column.
1:37:22And we were in the fourth column.
1:37:27The fourth column.
1:37:28It wasn't the 37th or 38th column of the day.
1:37:34Well, that's good.
1:37:35Don't you think, John, does that port call bother you?
1:37:39It depends on some of these questions that George is raising right now.
1:37:43I would be considerably bothered if we did it on an unrealistic basis.
1:37:49Okay, go ahead.
1:37:52that, uh, the line labeled remainder, which is the admission program, which we scrub away out of the budget process, which is the outlay management, uh, can be all the way to an unconstrained picture that we would have to be willing to consider when this technology comes, and still have a small amount left for presidential initiatives, about a billion or so.
1:38:21or we can squeeze some of that down and have a greater amount.
1:38:27I have the impression, for example, that we definitely ought to have, we would like to have in here, a sort of a major push in the R&D area in some fashion.
1:38:38Right.
1:38:39So I think we could wheel that, plus
1:38:43not doing much violence to the existing program and still stay within.
1:38:47Or we can push down some of those existing programs and build up some of the others.
1:38:54And we have running work to do that.
1:38:57We can talk through those issues now, or we can come back to you and say we've sort of positioned some of these broad alternatives.
1:39:09Let me suggest that we ought to perhaps look at the alternatives on the domestic side now.
1:39:15I mean, in a week, if that time is available to you and I, this week can go on.
1:39:25But what I'm getting at is that I want to get a better feel of a job and what your feelings are on the domestic side.
1:39:34Let me say this.
1:39:37I'm putting it quite brutally, I don't think argumentation is a very helpful thing politically.
1:39:42I think maybe we have to have it because people expect to have an education.
1:39:46But I would claim that as far as this country is concerned,
1:39:55Those of us who come here to Washington become obsessed with the idea that the whole country is so terribly interested in all of these things and have to do with them.
1:40:05Why have we got to do a nation?
1:40:06Why are we doing this?
1:40:09Well, if we did not have anything in the way of leadership in certain other areas, maybe that would be the case.
1:40:17And of course, the people got used to it in Johnsonville.
1:40:24And also for certain things many of the churches have done without who we are.
1:40:30We've got all our album out there.
1:40:33We've got this and that.
1:40:38We've got all the bombs and that.
1:40:39As I said, we accept it as a message to the river.
1:40:44I hope that they help us very much.
1:40:47Now John's suggestion with regard to the property tax that appeals to people.
1:40:55The irony of it, I think, should be tried .
1:41:03I think, as far as other things are concerned, .
1:41:12How the hell did you do it under the Constitution?
1:41:21It's a hell of a lot better.
1:41:22It's a hell of a lot better to spend a billion for it than to spend eight and a half billion for it here.
1:41:27They're gonna get rid of it.
1:41:31But that's the kind of thing that we're up against in terms of dollars.
1:41:40And some of us like it.
1:41:41We're going to lay out.
1:41:42You'll have to decide which ones you want.
1:41:45Let me see, too.
1:41:47I want to see.
1:41:47I thought it was bright enough.
1:41:51If it's tied to it.
1:42:00I just don't know how to get at the damn thing here.
1:42:02Maybe your value added has gotten to like also shift from the income tax kind of thing.
1:42:11We wouldn't do that.
1:42:14Well, you know the thing we've been saying all along is that revenue sharing is a stopgap.
1:42:19That what's wrong is that we've got a lot of tax systems going on.
1:42:24And the revenue sharing is a band-aid on that.
1:42:27And eventually the inter-country is going to have to come to grips with this.
1:42:29It's an interesting little mouth.
1:42:31Cal Fowler has been going around saying that, too, as he's done.
1:42:36And there's some stuff for, you know, New York Times and other places, which he says we're going to have to get rid of.
1:42:44Let me pick up something you said.
1:42:47You talked about R&D.
1:42:48I think it's important.
1:42:52We didn't create the issues, the domestic issues.
1:42:57And what we've tried to do is to come up with some responses to what are existing issues.
1:43:03I know.
1:43:04I know we have.
1:43:05And to a greater or lesser extent, these issues will go on.
1:43:08Either the administration responds to them or the Congress responds to them.
1:43:14And the Congress responds to it.
1:43:16Then what happened to your budget?
1:43:20So a lot of this is, as you say, defensive.
1:43:23It's deflected.
1:43:24And you can bog the Congress down and debate on some of this stuff, like the problems of the cities, by having in there an arguable alternative.
1:43:35And then they get all bogged down and they don't do anything.
1:43:37And that's, in a sense, a big problem.
1:43:41This veto strategy thing is something that I think we ought to talk about.
1:43:49We'll be ready in a week to go on these various things.
1:43:51Do you want to talk about the veto strategy now?
1:43:56Well, the veto thing I'd like to just kind of draw your attention to because we have OEO extension rolling down the pipe very shortly.
1:44:04And it's a prime example of the sort of thing that you're going to be experiencing all next year.
1:44:11And it's very tough for us to anticipate what we're going to be really getting into next year in the way of, quote, domestic issues, unquote.
1:44:19Because we aren't going to crank it.
1:44:23Really, we're going to have to play kind of a zone defense.
1:44:27through a lot of specific domestic issue attacks that are going to be raised by the fact that most of the opposition candidates come out of the Congress, and they've got the initiative up there, and they're going to be slinging stuff down on us in murders.
1:44:43There's going to be all sorts of attacks on this book.
1:44:48So I'd like to see us arrange a sort of a strategic defense here.
1:44:53In other words, a double-covering...
1:44:57Sure, sure.
1:44:58And we can predict pretty much.
1:44:59We've got a lousy water bill that's going to come back.
1:45:03Water quality, water pollution.
1:45:05Oh, Christ, that's easy.
1:45:06And that's a musky thing, and it is pretty easy.
1:45:09It's going to be hard as hell for you.
1:45:11I know.
1:45:11And there are all kinds of little stuff.
1:45:13I may put my point of view on it.
1:45:15This is breaking one of my heartstrings.
1:45:20No question.
1:45:23The alternatives in every one of these are going to be bad.
1:45:28Damn if you do in one segment of the society and damn if you don't in the other.
1:45:33And so one of the reasons that the approach we took was to try and identify regionally where issues matter.
1:45:42What kinds of issues matter in key states?
1:45:45What kinds of issues are national issues and what kinds of issues are not?
1:45:52So that, and that's the kind of a zone defense.
1:45:55I think we have to come back to this again, frankly, for a political discussion.
1:46:01But Al is not here, and you should participate.
1:46:07I like John Mitchell in this, and I'll tell you why.
1:46:10I don't think John's political...
1:46:16Not only does Keith care a couple of times, I mean, he's a great tactician, but John doesn't.
1:46:22Yeah, but John is going to immerse himself more and more next year in the, Jesus, you've got to do this for New Jersey, God, you've got to do that for California, kind of talk.
1:46:33And I'd like him to understand in the inception what it is that you're dealing with and why you're deciding things the way you are, just so that...
1:46:43We cannot stop it.
1:46:44Let's wait a week.
1:46:45Let's wait a week.
1:46:51I think we do.
1:46:52Let's leave them all at the moment.
1:46:54Okay.
1:46:54And he's not, he's not a senator.
1:46:55We don't think so.
1:46:56I agree with your participant.
1:46:58Let me say this, that I, however, I would not bring in, like, Dole or, like, their judgment would be worse than that.
1:47:05I mean, I mean.
1:47:06Is there anybody else you want in, in terms of the peace or the goal?
1:47:11Well, I wonder if Colson might not be.
1:47:13Colson would be fine, and Paul McConaughey would be fine, if he has the time, but he's often busy right now.
1:47:18Well, he'll be looking off to the 30s or something.
1:47:21Yeah, Connolly would be very good.
1:47:24I'd like to do it before he leaves.
1:47:26All right.
1:47:26Yeah, Connolly would be good because he has good political antenna.
1:47:31I think Colson would be good.
1:47:32Not that his judgment is all that good, but he does know where the pressure lines are.
1:47:37Right.
1:47:38That's enough.
1:47:38Okay.
1:47:39In other words, you, the three of us, the three of you, Colson, I put Baldwin in just because he's going to take a lot of heat, too.
1:47:48and Connelly and I were the children.
1:47:53Actually, Larry knows a lot about this sort of thing.
1:48:00I agree totally with the idea that your response to domestic issues is bad.
1:48:09We've been kind of disappointed haven't we?
1:48:13You know, we get out and make these great big speeches
1:48:17I'm not disappointed.
1:48:18I think it serves a purpose.
1:48:22I agree.
1:48:22It makes you carry your force on the line.
1:48:26Well, sure.
1:48:26You also have a distant philosophical thread that you've gotten into.
1:48:31I don't mean to knock you, but you said that one of the years that I go on a hard road, you've worked with me.
1:48:40You're right.
1:48:41The thing we went through was getting that stand, you know, whatever became our program for remaking the country.
1:48:53Oh, you mean a national growth policy?
1:48:55Oh, it's alive and well.
1:48:56As a matter of fact, one of the things we're going to bring you is a great national growth policy that has new towns and housing and all sorts of stuff in it that is available to you if you want to go with it.
1:49:09You could do one thing.
1:49:10Maybe you could finish up a little gilding for the kids here in the mall.
1:49:15That would be one thing we could leave.
1:49:17You can do that.
1:49:19That's well along.
1:49:21My point that I'd like to make about the new initiative column in here is that if we have
1:49:35low probability of an accident were effective in fiscal 73, and yet they show up with large proposed outlets.
1:49:44You get into the same box as the old presidential initiative.
1:49:51In that, it makes the budget look more expensive than it is.
1:49:56And in this fiscal year, we do want the budget to be expensive, not just to look expensive for real.
1:50:04And you can do an awful lot with small first-year outlay amounts and just an awful lot of program content that can be put in for a billion and a half dollars.
1:50:17Well, if we go for this education, that has a $20 billion price tag to do with contingency or some kind of tax issues.
1:50:29And so you're going to be looking at all kinds of maybe mass numbers that won't really have anything to do with the education.
1:50:40Right, right.
1:50:40As long as that's been taught.
1:50:42Yeah, the education should be picked up.
1:50:45It will be.
1:50:45But some of these other initiatives, like R&D, can have relatively low first-year costs.
1:50:49Let me say this, that if you're going to go for that, look, if you're going to go for what is basically a tax increase,
1:51:00I might, in my view, you're not going to get hurt anymore by going for more in parents and then get a budget that might be balanced.
1:51:08You see, Pat, I know you're concerned about raising taxes and all that.
1:51:13However, and I'm concerned about it.
1:51:16However, if it's moving it around, it's moving it around.
1:51:20And if actually it doesn't happen, we're looking at two different things, you know what I mean?
1:51:31I just don't want you...
1:51:34But then we go out and say, oh, no, we're not raising taxes.
1:51:38This is cutting your local taxes.
1:51:40That's the way I present it.
1:51:43But my point is, if you're going to fool around with the value added, I would put it in there, and I would put in enough to...
1:51:51who say are not submitting a balance of motion.
1:51:54See my point tonight.
1:51:56Yeah, $20 billion has six billion in these education costs.
1:52:00Well, that's all right.
1:52:03I'd still put it in.
1:52:05I mean, why not?
1:52:06Why the hell don't we want a balance of the motion?
1:52:11Well, if the economy is below full of funds, I would say no.
1:52:17No.
1:52:17No, basically, we're talking about what happens now, not what we're asking for.
1:52:24You'll still ask for this same amount of money.
1:52:27But the point is, we put in this...
1:52:29I mean, you're going to go for the value-add and put in enough so that on paper, it looks as if we're having a balanced financial system.
1:52:38You basically keep two sets of books.
1:52:41But if we had a budget like this power, and then we laid on a value-added tax that had a net take to the federal government of, say, $22,000, we would then be showing a full point of surplus of $22,000.
1:52:55Oh, I know, I know.
1:52:58That's true, but...
1:53:00What it shows is one thing.
1:53:02What it does is something else again.
1:53:04This document, this budget, and your messaging company that is, you've bought one.
1:53:10All right.
1:53:13Well, back to what I said a minute ago, I see all these domestic things.
1:53:19I'll be sure.
1:53:19It's vital and commonly being on this discussion from the past.
1:53:25So if you want to set that, my view is maybe Monday would be a good time.
1:53:32But that may be a time.
1:53:35This is Tuesday.
1:53:36Well, it's my lucky day.
1:53:40I'm afraid you may be hearing it for the first time.
1:53:43I'm not so sure this video is going to be really attractive.
1:53:46I'm Christ-like a lot of times.
1:53:48No, they won't be here.
1:53:51They won't be here.
1:53:52But, uh...
1:53:55This VTOL thing is really the battlefield, as I see it.
1:54:00You talk about the platform, yes.
1:54:03But the battlefield is going to be what they send us.
1:54:05The VTOL makes the story over and over again.
1:54:08It's going to be the free lunches, and it's going to be the little kids, and it's going to be the hungry Indians, and it's going to be all of that stuff.
1:54:17And the...
1:54:18The thing we erect as a domestic proposal in the State of the Union ought to be designed to soak up as much of the shock of those things as possible.
1:54:30So the President could say, I'm vetoing this because I'm for that.
1:54:35I'm vetoing this because we've already covered that in this.
1:54:39And deflect as much of this as possible without the necessity of being flatly negative.
1:54:46That's it.
1:54:47We've got to be for something.
1:54:53Actually, we can do this when we talk about our investment conditions.
1:54:59despite the fact that when I say they're defensive, the defense is very important.
1:55:05And we've created a lot of oppression around the country.
1:55:09Some way back in there, we were for a lot of stuff.
1:55:12People don't care about it.
1:55:14We were for something.
1:55:18No, that's right.
1:55:19And when you veto this OEO thing that's coming down here, I'm afraid you're going to have to.
1:55:24And you're going to be against the poor people and all that.
1:55:30But you're forcing it.
1:55:32It is not going to be a totally negative proposition.
1:55:34It is in defense of the budget.
1:55:37And the OEO veto needs to stay in the House.
1:55:41I'm loving it.
1:55:42Yeah, I'm all for it.
1:55:42Loving each one.
1:55:44Well, we're probably going to get you a dirty bill some day.
1:55:49Pretty bad.
1:55:50Good.
1:55:50Very, very well.
1:55:51Very sweet dad.
1:55:52He can't clean it up.
1:55:53I thought he was going to remember our strategy and clean it up.
1:55:56Yeah, but since then, we've met again, and I haven't bothered you with the details of it, but it's going to come with a great big child development program.
1:56:05Which is, we're for that.
1:56:07No, sir.
1:56:07We're not.
1:56:07Child under five.
1:56:09Well, we're for children under five, but we're not for the federal government taking children away from their mothers and bringing them up.
1:56:18Which, hell no.
1:56:19See, that's about what this is about.
1:56:21We can campaign against that.
1:56:22all year long.
1:56:23You want the state to bring up your child.
1:56:26That's what that is.
1:56:28It's statism.
1:56:29You want the state bringing up your child.
1:56:30That's the way to make the issue.
1:56:32Put it right there in the message.
1:56:35You want the state then.
1:56:37The government has got to bring up your child.
1:56:38We passed the word to the Hill that if child development was on there, that we would have to separate it off and preserve it over the Hill.
1:56:49And that's well understood now and tested with some of these calls this morning.
1:56:54And off and to buying on roads and all of them are, you know, very, very sure that they can sustain.
1:57:04So that's the kind of thing we're looking for.
1:57:06Could you have a chance, John, before Monday, to grab Colleen and get him started thinking about this problem of your tax thing?
1:57:16He should come into the meeting.
1:57:19You see, you remember when we had our other meeting, Treasury had its tax proposals, which I didn't think were exciting enough.
1:57:32Those I don't think are exciting enough for you to read.
1:57:37They're worth more than this one is.
1:57:39Basically, they have two things to talk about.
1:57:42This one and the tax credits and other deductions appropriately.
1:57:50Well, now I don't think that's comfortable.
1:57:52Well, we've been working with the Justice Department, and there are several ways of doing it that they will give us favorable opinion on.
1:58:00And one of them dovetails pretty nicely to this point that it's not a program.
1:58:05So that we could do it out through that.
1:58:08Do you abandon the idea of the Constitution?
1:58:12Kind of abandon it, but it would certainly be a last resort.
1:58:15I'll tell you what, the Constitutional Method route, I've talked about that, but I think
1:58:21Yeah, it poses enormous problems.
1:58:23Well, it poses problems in terms of what the damn Constitution is going to be like in the California Constitution, if you don't regret that.
1:58:30Yeah.
1:58:30I think it is.
1:58:32Yeah, very much so.
1:58:33All right.
1:58:34The other thing, one of the worst.
1:58:35Yes, it is.
1:58:36And the other thing is the Constitutional Amendment thing.
1:58:40just going to put right in the fat of the fire and this church they think I mean I can see the NEA you know those radicals in there fighting the hell out of them Billy Graham's the fundamentalist but fighting the Catholics of before who had blood mistreatments on that one on uh now Russell is a different problem this this thing though is it can be structured on a per capita basis well in fact every kid gets
1:59:08$400 in federal money for his education.
1:59:11Almost, almost $1,000.
1:59:14No, no.
1:59:15In this case, if I kept that fee, for example, as part of the what point, as part of the what check are you at?
1:59:25This is going to be one of the options.
1:59:27I'd rather do that than to have this budget that we have here.
1:59:35put it over there and that, so that we can separate the hard part of the analyzer, rather than over George's catapult.
1:59:40Another thing that would be said for our value-added system, for this kind of approach to getting people thinking about it, is basically getting the value-added into the backstop as a substitute for other things that would improve the quality of the backstop.
2:00:00That was under the tax.
2:00:02Well, this is like how you can buy all kinds of accessories with this.
2:00:06You can even solve the busing problem with this thing.
2:00:10Oh, yeah.
2:00:10So, that's all we need.
2:00:11You mean by buying buses?
2:00:12No, sir.
2:00:13Never leave.
2:00:14By doing away with assignments to schools.
2:00:16As long as the kid carries his voucher with him, what difference does it make what school he goes to?
2:00:23I could talk a lot about that.
2:01:06It's a very good exercise and I appreciate all your work on it.
2:01:09We'll get back to this.
2:01:12We'll, when we ever have a meeting, set aside a couple hours on a journey.
2:01:18This is a good time of day, say, meeting around 3.30, 4 o'clock, and then everybody's done with everything else and we'll be at 6.
2:01:29Could I raise one other layered problem?
2:01:31We're all here and we're all together.
2:01:34Actually, there are two problems.
2:01:36One is on international narcotics control.
2:01:43We're not achieving anywhere near an optimum cooperation level.
2:01:50And another problem is that there is now a Department of Defense damage assessment
2:01:57so-called, which has been prepared, to the effect that the Pentagon Papers inflict no damage at all on the security of the United States.
2:02:07Now, the court files are replete with affidavits from admirals and generals saying how much the Pentagon Papers would damage the United States if they were released.
2:02:17For some reason, Laird has caused this no-damage assessment report
2:02:27As long as the kid carries his voucher with him, what difference does it make what school he goes to?
2:02:30I could talk about it all day.
2:03:14It's a very good exercise.
2:03:15I appreciate all your work.
2:03:18We'll get back to this.
2:03:19We'll, if we ever have a meeting, set aside a couple hours on a journey.
2:03:27This is a good time of day.
2:03:29Meet at around 3.30, 4 o'clock.
2:03:30Everybody's done with everything else.
2:03:32We'll meet at 6.
2:03:35Could I raise one other layered problem?
2:03:38My problem is here and we're all together.
2:03:42Actually, there are two problems.
2:03:44One is on international narcotics control.
2:03:50We're not achieving anywhere near an optimum cooperation level.
2:03:56And another problem is that there is now a Department of Defense damage assessment
2:04:04so-called, which has been prepared, to the effect that the Pentagon Papers inflict no damage at all on the security of the United States.
2:04:14Now, the court files are replete with affidavits from admirals and generals saying how much the Pentagon Papers would damage the United States if they were released.
2:04:25For some reason, Laird has caused this no-damage assessment report to be prepared, you know,
2:04:31And we'd like to get back in position on that because we've, of course, got the Ellsberg case to try.
2:04:40And I'm open to suggestion.
2:04:41I'll call him if that's the way that everybody thinks I ought to go and just tell him to get a damage assessment report in that shows damage consistent with Admiral Giler and everybody else.
2:04:52But somehow or another, he's got a reason why he should call it.
2:04:57Okay, well, I'll call him and just tell him.
2:05:00No, that's not because of the judicial and other things.
2:05:03At the same time, if you don't mind, I'll get him on the narcotics thing.
2:05:07All right.
2:05:09And see if we can get him in line on that.
2:05:12But I hesitate to badger him because he always supports the NIC as a...
2:05:20As far as levels are concerned, I think that we can sort of reserve
2:05:48some finality, until we see what the president's final selections are.
2:05:52I think it's a good idea that there's a position.
2:05:54At this point, you let everybody know that we're trying to get a full-blown film, because if you don't try at this point, you don't ever get one.
2:06:02There's nothing final at all.
2:06:03What is the situation?
2:06:10I don't know.
2:06:15I don't think I can have this open front.
2:06:17We're just talking corporate, you know.
2:06:19We've only got about a month left.
2:06:20We don't have a lot of time as well.
2:06:22Congress will come back in.
2:06:24Like Harold said last year, I think we'll have to have this budget up until January 20th.
2:06:27We're figuring now.
2:06:28And a lot of things, of course, have to be done ahead of time, but they're still there.
2:06:32They're still responsible for this.
2:06:34This has been unbelievable how we've gotten through the career.
2:06:40I mean, to think that, for example, that Tony today ought to be so close.
2:06:44and they know damn well, you know, I left very clear, well I think, I'll bet you we don't.
2:06:55I just want to check the group that were there this morning.
2:06:59I'll bet you they're both, I'll bet you we didn't miss the morning, we were great.
2:07:03But, way frankly, here we are.
2:07:05I said, look, we have a program.
2:07:09It is working.
2:07:09It will work.
2:07:10I give you that commitment that it will, and in our involvement.
2:07:12It will succeed, and in a way that will succeed.
2:07:15We're going to get our prisoners back.
2:07:18Now, you can do it that way, or you can do it another way.
2:07:21And that is for Congress to serve itself in.
2:07:26Goddamn, I would take that on myself, on my responsibility as a Jew.
2:07:34No, no, this is terrible.
2:07:35Because you don't take the prisoner issue and make it very important.
2:07:39But it says that, what they say, that within six months after prison you can release them.
2:07:46That's what they said.
2:07:47I don't know how to agree with that.
2:07:51Well, I agree that two release.
2:07:54Fine.
2:07:54But that only leaves one option.
2:07:57See, basically, basically, if you do that, I'm just looking at the narrow prisoner issue.
2:08:04Put yourself in the position of the enemy.
2:08:07If they pass such a resolution, such a restraint on the prison, if the fact says, well, if we release the prisoners, we get all American forces out in a certain time.
2:08:19And so, basically, the prisoners are that.
2:08:25As a matter of fact, we probably will be out roughly in that timeframe anyway.
2:08:31Well, but if on the other hand, on the other hand, you leave Henry Wolfe in the back, maybe he won't get out at all.
2:08:40If on the other hand, you leave out on the fact that maybe you're going to go in and bomb the hell out of him, which we damn well may do it for the prisoners alone.
2:08:50Maybe you've got three weapons, and you're likely to get the prisoners to hell a lot sooner.
2:08:54That's my point.
2:08:56You make certain now, with the Mansfield Amendment, that you aren't going to get the vote.
2:09:02Right now.
2:09:03Except under those, on that narrow, they're all right.
2:09:07That's my point.
2:09:07They don't realize it.
2:09:09Now we may not beat that deadline, but I think we will.
2:09:11I think.
2:09:12At least that's what we're gambling on.
2:09:15What the hell?
2:09:17We're trying just as hard as we can to get out.
2:09:20Last week, last week the casualties were eight.
2:09:24This week they're five.
2:09:26That's too bad, but they're five.
2:09:29But Christ thinks, what are these people talking about?
2:09:38Well, they want it.
2:09:38They want to stand it.
2:09:40Exactly.
2:09:40That's the problem this year.
2:09:42Oh, sure.
2:09:43They want to be in a position where, well, we let this poor, dumb president down.
2:09:47I mean, and he would flaunt it, but now he's kicking and screaming.
2:09:51to end this war, and so we voted for it.
2:09:54So what?
2:09:54Some secretly hanker after that humiliation of the withdrawal.
2:10:00We have to have this kind of experience.
2:10:02Well, that's true.
2:10:03Oh, yeah, there's something else, you know.
2:10:05But what if Capra really gets tired of you?
2:10:07Some really want the United States to end this war in a way
2:10:11that it is known that we lost.
2:10:13We failed because they said all along that we shouldn't go in.
2:10:18And after we didn't get in, they got us in.
2:10:19They said we should get out because it was the wrong war.
2:10:24And therefore, you've got to lose.
2:10:27That is a terrible attitude.
2:10:28That's what infuriates them about the optimization in your policy because today it's working.
2:10:32And what it is, and there's another thing that you have to have in mind,
2:10:38And it turns out that 402 was re-elected.
2:10:40I mean, all of history has told us that he did.
2:10:45And the fact that he had such a big vote is how these women are viewed in the media.
2:10:52I mean, I haven't realized it at the time.
2:10:55I thought that the government, and I wish he had had, if I'd have done it, I'd have set up a couple of clouds and bought paid up to run.
2:11:01Then it got 50%, 40%, I don't know what he was talking about, but he didn't do it.
2:11:06It just got that way.
2:11:08But when you come down to it now, that's one point.
2:11:11So you've got two with no election.
2:11:14Or some election, that's not, I don't know what you're talking about.
2:11:21Or the alternative, which is so dreadful, and actually is, a communist South Vietnam with no elections, and with, and I know where I am putting this, with at least a million killed.
2:11:40My God, they've been fighting for five years.
2:11:43At least, by the very smallest number that we can think of, how many North Vietnamese have been killed in this war in the past five years?
2:11:57How many?
2:11:57A half a million?
2:11:58Probably 750,000 that were killed.
2:11:59What the hell do you think they're going to do when they take over South Vietnam?
2:12:03How many do you think they're going to kill?
2:12:06They killed, even when they had dead people, when they got to the North, they killed.
2:12:12They, according to the Catholic vision of the dead, they killed and starved to death 750,000 people.
2:12:18God damn it, that's what will happen to the South.
2:12:24Now, of course, all that doesn't matter.
2:12:27We're going to do the death.
2:12:28We've suffered enough.
2:12:29What are we going to do to the South?
2:12:31We have to leave.
2:12:32We're going to have to go better and all the rest.
2:12:34Don't think it would affect us against that.
2:12:36And particularly, but we're so close.
2:12:40It was 5 this week, 8 weeks, 15 this week, 16.
2:12:43So we're out 6 months, 8 months, 10 months, whatever the case might be.
2:12:48And we succeed.
2:12:49And South Vietnam survives.
2:12:52And the prisoners are back.
2:12:53It's been a miserable long war.
2:12:56South Vietnam, with the government that we would prefer was elected as most governments in the world are not with a contested election.
2:13:05South Vietnam is there.
2:13:09God damn it, that's a hell of a difference.
2:13:12And that's why these people, oh boy, once we get to the point, I'd love to take them on and kick their balls off because it's so horrible.
2:13:22Is there a chance of getting those prisoners by force?
2:13:29Do we know where they are?
2:13:30Oh, no, you need another... We don't know where they are.
2:13:34He's moving them back and forth now after that.
2:13:38Yeah, yeah, definitely.
2:13:39They were moving, but let me say this, there is another chance to get them.
2:13:44Northamptomace is desperately in an argument, desperately hurting in front of the flood, desperately in front of the flood.
2:13:50This is why the men's field didn't have a plan.
2:13:55Yet, the negotiating track closes, as it might, in December of early January.
2:14:02Let me tell you, I'm not going to come in there and simply say, look, we're going to get out in six months in the nap time period time.
2:14:09We won't keep a residual force until we get the prisoners.
2:14:12Uh-huh.
2:14:13We're going to take out on a very highly selective basis.
2:14:17We will take out those military targets.
2:14:21We should do it until we get the prisoners.
2:14:24We don't need to crap it around.
2:14:28Now, that, you see, is that very fact they know, because of Cambodia and Laos, that I will probably order this.
2:14:35And the Russians know it, and the Chinese know it also.
2:14:41That may get us a negotiation.
2:14:43But you see, in the event that they pass this ban, they've had the House and Senate pass this kind of an amendment, that becomes an idle trend.
2:14:52See?
2:14:55So, they think it's idle.

Nixon, Ehrlichman & Haig on Federal Budget and Revenue Sharing

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