Conversation 455-022

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Close it out.

We have to be ready.

Well, on the basis of not much, but we had a wrap-up meeting this morning on welfare reform at Labor, Agriculture, Education, and others, and to make sure that all those testimonies were in line.

And briefly summarized, Mills may try to separate out Social Security.

and put it right away in the old welfare bank.

There's a very respectable view that Mills doesn't want any welfare bill at all.

Those who disagree with that, I don't think he wants to.

My view is that he doesn't, because I think he's going to play politically.

I think he's going to play politically.

Well, that plus the fact that it's not very palatable to him to see Long and Kevin sitting over there in the Senate ready to criticize whatever it is that he stands over there.

Oh, yeah.

It's enhanced in the house now, which he doesn't like to jeopardize.

Well, he's one of the big three in the house through the chain ball speeder and so on.

He has a very long roll in the house.

He's more and more exercising his muscle.

And he's a good cook.

And I put a lot of weight to fix many things.

Nelson's an eye.

either liberals or conservatives, so that he's going to be very slow in sending it over.

The bills will try to couple welfare reform and a substitute for revenue share from federalizing welfare and not social security.

He suspects that he will try to split it off.

So would you say the view of the congressional people, and suspecting Elliott was, if he does that, then he'll have an awful hard time getting that very extensive piece of legislation through the House, unless he gets a lot of support from here.

Right.

It's a bill that would require a welfare reform.

But it is a welfare reform.

A tougher welfare reform.

It's a tougher work reform.

Yes, it's a work reform.

Yeah.

And send it over to his revenue chair.

And a form of welfare sharing.

So I'll see.

I'll see.

The Dinkirk and other congressional relations people think that folks could not get into the House without their support.

Let's just consider that the Democrats have a pretty strong sentiment against welfare.

We talked about catching out food stamps.

We talked about public service employment.

We talked about tough work requirements.

I think there's a pretty general consensus.

They understand that you want tougher requirements.

They are going to hang with not cashing out food stamps.

I'm putting it this way.

We'll do all the technical work to assist them in catching out food stamps.

But because of Harvard's very strong opposition, Veneman will put his tongue in his teeth and say, we don't have a position on that.

Well, I know you have, but your Secretary of Agriculture is opposed to that.

That's what he says.

And there's a disagreement among the departments on whether that's an accurate reflection or not.

I can't believe it is.

But I have a side arrangement with them on this.

Good.

In other words, let it go through, right?

Catch it out, right?

Exactly.

Good.

I think he is.

There's always going to be so many people like him.

That's right.

And, uh, hydrogen's a mine.

Oh, I think so.

I think so, yeah.

Okay, yeah.

Uh, and Senator Richland's gonna replace Edgar.

I'll, I'll make him up to talk to you about that.

Gonna replace him?

Uh... Lunderbuss.

Yeah.

Oh, sorry.

Uh...

I see.

What else is hard about it?

I just want to go back to the guy in the picture.

He's got a couple of prospects as well.

He's got a great intent in thinking.

I suppose the other thing he talked about was the public service employment aspect of the welfare report.

He had a major department recommendation to have a fairly substantial program

of public service employment for welfare people.

And to use this plus our special... That'll be hard.

That'll be hard.

Alternatives to their...

Thanks.

That's the Labor Department's view of how to present an alternative to this Nelson effort.

This Nelson effort that's going on now.

Plus our special resident hearing, which has a...

A large budget attached to it.

For manpower?

Yes, for manpower.

But even in the welfare report, we're sticking to the concept of these jobs being as much transition jobs as possible.

Good.

From the welfare job into a regular job.

Strong incentives.

Do many of the federal grants belong to the fellows in the job?

You're also going to have some public service jobs in the manpower training.

What do you reckon, Bill, when it goes online?

And a special revenue, Bill, that's different.

The question is to describe what you mean by manpower training.

And that description, on the one hand, emphasizes training, doing something for the individual that can help him or her

get into regular work, but it permits the use of public service employment as one of the work sites, so to speak, where that could be done.

But again, the emphasis is on a transition type arrangement.

On the other hand, if you have the really follow through on the theory of revenue sharing, if the community wants to emphasize that,

to a considerable degree.

The philosophy of it would say, well, all right, if community A wants to do that that way, that's up to them.

But the main thing is that you don't have a category that requires community B to do it also if they don't want to.

And I suppose that kind of differentiation, of course, .

Eggler, he is no administrator.

And Richardson's decided that his best use is as a citizen on the road, talking to groups, peddling the administration's help.

So he's going to move him out of the assistant secretary for health and get an administrator to make him something else, make him something else, keep him around.

And so we make him a special consultant or something.

If he wants you to try this monster.

He said it would crack a lot less time to do it this way.

Egbert is willing to do this.

Good.

So it seems to be the right, obviously.

I would imagine it was just that kind of all over this scene.

Well, real nice guy to be used to.

It does not generate ideas even if he doesn't think analytically.

He was of no help at all, you know, for this helicopter.

Well, he's a hell of a program.

It's going to be good.

It's surprising.

It's going to fly very well.

Well, it's surprising because the reception down there is great.

Yeah.

It's one of the few things we've done around here that is ideologically pure.

It does all the things that we would like to have these things do.

We have to keep fighting all the time to stay away from the so-called first dollar approach and maintain the validity of people paying, feeling some cost impact.

And I think that will be a continual key by the way.

Closing the doors and stuff.

Elliot is testifying before Kennedy's Health Subcommittee today.

And he was looking forward to it very much.

He's highly enthusiastic about this program.

Elliot, from the bits I saw, faced the nation's performance yesterday.

Catch it all.

Seem to be doing extremely well, I thought.

I didn't see any of it.

Good morning.

Yeah, sure.

You don't have a little conference, do you?

They have a cute game on this.

They go through a series of staff-level meetings, and then they have a committee hearing, an executive session.

Then they announce that the department has not done its homework, and with great sadness, they're having to return this whole copy of work.

You could do that in this case.

Well, they've done it twice now on welfare reform.

Okay, welfare reform.

I know, but not on mail.

Oh, no.

That just got out there.

But, I mean, this is mail as a gamut up to now.

And you try to cut it down and say, well, what was unsatisfactory about the work?

And you won't get any specification at all.

I think John Collins' brand name comes second.

There, it's right here.

You are definitely in welfare reform, in any welfare reform, in your reform, at this point.

The same with Revenue.

The first one of those special Revenue sharing bills that gets through, we need to set off sky rockets and claim victory all the way down the locker because this is not going to be our way.

No, but however it is.

And probably need law enforcement.

Oh, that's a key.

Yeah.

But we slipped that incidentally in three or four days in order to do some more surveillance.

Because this would be awfully important at this point.

And Pop, and Roscoe, and all of those people being born.

Yeah, the layers are all the same.

Yeah.

And what's the situation on the, on the, on the Hudson Island?

And the Hudson, uh...

He's a very good man.

I read the paper.

He's a good man.

He's graceful.

He's got a decent heart.

He's got a fine job.

I know, too, that he gave an awful lot of thought to the proposal he made here, and I think that from his standpoint, our Secretary of Labor is very convinced, and I don't know how he feels about that.

I've listened enough of this to know that it's a greasy slide, and, boy, if we get on that slide, we're just going to be off of it.

Well, I feel that way.

I've never been enthusiastic about these boards, and I would have to say that if there's one place where we have a special province in the construction industry, but when it was put up as a voluntary thing that the industry and labor might undertake themselves, it doesn't seem to me that it was worth encouraging.

because there's just an outside chance that people, if they want to work at it, could do something.

But if we've got to force them into it and then take all the heat for it, I think it's unlikely that... Now, the other point is that I'm not going to force them into that.

The other thing is that the wage price freeze, no matter how we describe it, would be considered to be wage price controls.

There's no way to separate it from the specifics.

That's not good.

I think we're sort of gradually winning this battle on the inflation front, and we can just stick with it.

Whether or not, on me, on business, I'm fighting for a big space.

It's like a ball up there, and I suppose that breaks the border.

It may drive the AFL-CIO off that.

I mean, the conservatives, they can come out and catch you.

They have a little problem.

We'll do our best for them.

But, uh, if you don't re-visualize the hutch when you set up that wood and all of this and take it together, I don't think you're going to be able to get it together.

What does the next hutch look like?

What is the next follow-up on hit?

What do you say is the next follow-up?

I mean, I don't really see it recurring on the game state.

What do you want to say?

I understand we're not going to say what a union is.

Well, I think we will see some change of attitude in the construction industry.

In fact, I think there is some change now to the extent that union leaders really are concerned and they want to get a handle on their local union people.

that they may find that it's pretty handy to point to the Davis-Bacon Act and say, look how serious the president apparently thinks this is.

And we hate him for doing this, but still and all, we have a problem.

But we also have this to be said for.

What I wish is that somehow or other we can get rid of that law completely.

I just don't think it's a good thing.

But certainly that can be done.

It's the emergency as we define it.

shift the burden of the Congress on this in any way by suspending their statement on the basis of there being an emergency.

I think that you are advised by the Attorney General that the term emergency is not all the other way around fine.

You think that this is a kind of emergency that justifies this kind of action, but

and then send it to Congress for clarification.

You mean to not do it?

Oh, do it.

Do it first and ask questions after.

I think you're going to get sued.

It's not a union that's going to sue you right out of hand.

Because I just asked the Congress to question the term emergency.

How do we do that?

Ask the law to be changed.

Congress clarified that by the term emergency, it embraces the sort of event situation that we have now.

Economic emergency, in other words.

Consider this for another time.

I don't have an idea.

Does that weaken your case in the court?

I don't know.

They come right quick, excited.

They go in for a run at Matt and Amos, and they do some proceeding in the courtroom, either grab a decree or an adjustment from the Council of the Union, and then they appeal.

They can get up pretty fast.

I think 120 days.

I was thinking it would be pretty smooth.

Probably would.

But the matter is, it's kind of what it is.

We're in the long run.

Is that not true?

I think so.

Yes, you'll get the effect of how fast it comes along.

You will be making a match against construction.

And, well, on the congressman, you don't think that we just...

I don't think it's too badly.

I think what we might do is send a kind of scholarly treatise that says what we really need, instead of some repression law, is a modern, up-to-date law that tests the person's ability to respond to economic change and so forth.

There ought to be a sort of expectant fix, make it forever kind of position.

except that she didn't, the contract that we were talking about was one that was even harder to suspend.

Since it called it forth, were conditions of wages actually declining, with the threat of big government contracts being a juicy reason why people would cut their wages in order to get that contract on?

And therefore, I think that goes into the end of the paper.

You might pick up on these, John, but to what the findings are listed in the law, they usually have some preliminary statements.

Now, as I just said to you, I would guess we have to go back and look at some history and see what that must do.

And why do I have to have that?

Yes, sir.

I'm not sure.

I wouldn't want any way to appear to be indecisive.

Your point is that they bring us so forth.

We spend it, GSA and everybody, you have a few contracts around, too, where they let them around.

Well, let's just say the Cuban's boiling up, the Cuban's building a job in Miami, and the place is shaping up.

That'd be quite a better route to earn.

Do you want to broach this subject with leadership in the market?

Scott, you know, you can keep the secret for five minutes.

The leadership agendas we now have with the consumer legislation and the law, as I get it from this, to their advice, is to be without indicating what's your position.

Well, they're all right with you.

I suppose I get a price, but you must go ahead with a weak price for you or something like that.

Well, are you ready?

That's the point.

What time?

Are you ready?

I don't know.

I don't know how much time we can get.

Well, maybe we shouldn't.

Well, I don't want to tell him.

Tell him that we discussed it the way we told him we were going to do it.

You might be able to give him some of your reasons.

Reeling action is necessary in reasons why you think that the freeze and the controls and the board will not work without saying precisely what you are going to do.

State of the stage.

Side of the stage.

But let's just put it down with that tag in it, right?

These leaders didn't go on too long anyway, you know.

I'll just say that when I have the signal on it.

What would you think about George or Jim carrying the affirmative on the laying out?

Yeah, I think...

I think it's the right decision with regard to

Or Miss George, you have just made a good reason.

Here it is.

Or, you go all the way, wage and price controls, and that stuff.

The likes of Archer and the rest are not willing to face up to.

I have.

I've heard of people that face up to.

Yet, if we have a situation where inflation psychology is so serious,

that you cannot stop it, that the market forces will not work any longer in this country, and we'll have to have wage and price controls in the 1950s.

But this idea that you would set up a wage and price

Men of good will will sit around the table and work it out.

It's a bomb.

It's not going to work.

It just doesn't have to work.

The waste price control will have a hell of a time working, too.

You know what I mean?

You know what I'm saying?

The lack of depression affects the economy.

And it's almost fatalistic.

You know what I mean, John?

Do you feel that way?

Well, I... How about you, John?

You've heard this, haven't you?

Well, I...

I know the reasons.

They do it for causation reasons.

Good God, this is too early for causation.

I don't know what happens next, and I think that's the thing that concerns me.

I want to feel that I can see what the alternatives were at the next step.

If they did this, we've done it.

And it looks to me like it's much too fluid at the next step to start something that may be happening.

Some things may not happen, and I care.

I have a feeling that it is.

The Secretary Connolly is going to testify tomorrow on a wage price control bill.

We had a brief conversation in here, I guess, Thursday or Friday.

And I get from that and your comments that our best posture is to be willing to have those if Congress wants them, but we're not asking for it.

Yeah, we're not asking for it.

If they want to do it, go ahead.

Yeah, no, we're not asking for it.

We're certainly not going to basically give it to us anyway.

Doesn't that sound like a... That's what I think we are.

Yeah, because they have to realize that people in the country don't understand the negative support and so on.

We're not asking for it.

I think he's got enough guidance on him.

Well, I think I'll call him and just reinforce this.

Would you also, once he testifies?

Tomorrow, I don't know whether it's tomorrow or the afternoon.

I don't think it's tomorrow.

What are you doing, though?

If you want to testify, you're going to have to hear these things.

Sure, I'm going to call this off.

Okay.

But do it.

Do it.

It's the beginning.

I know he has to, but... Would you also call him?

And he deals these things with a great scale.

And also on the wage, on our comparison suggestion.

That's the thing I'll try to think.

Well, no, no, this is on the legislation.

But if he says, what about the general federal reserve board's suggestion that we have a wage, gas stabilization, a wage stabilization program, if he's asked about that, I think he should send it.

At least, I mean, give him the same disdain that our director gives everything we suggest.

I don't want him to get into a direct fight with our director.

That isn't a good idea.

But maybe we just say, well, that's an irony, as we have considered, and the President has

As yet, the commandment convinces that this is something that will work until he isn't about to put anything that won't work.

How's that?

And we're, but he's, his mind is open, he's considering all these things.

As his action later today in construction indicates he will act, as his action on the spoil and seal indicates he will act, where, but he doesn't believe, let's see, we talk about death, about jawbone, he doesn't believe in jawbone, but not in teeth, he doesn't believe in any action unless it will work.

and wage price is the thing that you have to consider, whether or not that sort of thing will work even with, not hardly suggesting, but the law will work in peacetime.

And whether it should have been for that reason, we have not asked for it.

We have doubts, great doubts about the name.

However, if the Congress proceeds to give that authority, we are not attached to receiving that authority.

That's one of the tools that could eventually be used.

I passed that along to him in the conversation and said that he suggested I pass it along and that if he had some questions

or things that he wanted to clarify with you personally, why you'd be glad to talk with him on the phone or otherwise.

Or, yeah, fine, fine.

Don't mind me for doing this, but I would guess as soon as he saved us as far away from him as he could, you know, and keep it just as loose as he could.

Yes.

Let's wait.

Do you want to be here when David comes in?

As soon as Max, David, Ed, they'll deal with it.

They'll deal with it.

And he'll come in and talk about it.

Or, well, maybe somebody else is bringing it.

You've got to find a way around this.

That's right.

Well, one other thing I wanted to do, too, to be sure that we understood.

You know, I want to be sure that Romney and, you know, and also Justice and

follow-up on that, you know, that they not indicate any administration division on what we have said about this housing thing.

You know, I was extremely clear on that.

Here's our position, you know.

Now, it may be that they want to go a whole lot further than that.

And as I said, I've had the Blackjack case open.

There are elements about it.

But why is it...

I know it isn't Georgia.

I know it isn't Mitchell.

It's these people down the line.

Sam Jackson made a speech, I noticed, the other day at the House.

What did he want to do?

He's talking about the fact that the factories are all in the suburbs, so we're going to get the workers out in the suburbs sold.

What does he want us to do about it?

Well, they're public housing projects and barely bills.

Well, that's the theory.

And how can they do it?

I say that your promise of justice now, you know, Leonard, will be diminished.

Well, understand, on the housing thing, there isn't any way to win on it, which we're tired to.

And we've said this, I think we understand.

where we've been in every vote there is in the civil rights area, we cannot fight this.

Do you agree or not?

I agree.

I am going to try and get this worked around into a reflection of the plight of a small homeowner in these suburbs.

Because I think we have to personalize this now.

What would happen again?

Yeah.

And if it was a small homeowner, it wouldn't be as tempting.

Oh, he is.

You put one of these projects next door.

And his property values go down.

He doesn't have any way of getting them back.

He doesn't even have a small homeowner.

Oh, sure.

And percentage-wise, I thought he could handle it.

His home goes off.

much faster, much more, much more damaged fish than a middle range house.

Those are the people that I see.

So the small homeowner, when one of these projects moves in the field out of line, this black, and you get the people coming in there who park their junk automobiles and throw the matches in the backyard and all the kinds of things that you get.

You just can't get your money out of one of these marginal flats.

These are the guys who were hurt by this.

And the location decisions for these projects, public housing projects,

has to be very carefully done, unless I understand they're working it out under the law.

There is no requirement that a public housing project be put in English.

Well, except... Yeah, that's right.

And what, except the thing we're saying by the forced integration is that the federal government should have a location which is selected by a non-profit corporation or a public housing corporation.

We are not going to use the coercive elements of contributing money to compel that location where it is resisted by the town, provided

that it is not solely for great reasons of race.

Because of economic or other reasons.

That's it.

Race, that's it.

And that was never always the case.

Well, there are other reasons of race.

It isn't.

Of an art part of the country, the housing projects that are being put out in the county are basically not black.

They're low class white and Indians.

And they just don't know how to flush the toilets and they throw their garbage in the backyard and the place is just, you know, a ruined, lousy neighborhood.

And that runs property values down.

And there's a way to do this.

And it is to say that Prince George's County or Fairfax County or one of these places has to have low and moderate income housing in it.

And it's up to them to find a good place.

It's got to be on public transportation.

It's got to have sewer water.

That's what his plan is.

And what we say is this is now a question for a local decision.

If you put it in the best place in your county, you can.

And you can't discriminate against this.

How can the federal power be used otherwise?

How could it be used if you wanted to?

We don't have any federal property.

What do you do?

How do you coerce?

How are we coercing?

How are we saying?

For instance, we might say, look, the Baptist Church has decided they want it here, and you've zoned it out of existence.

Now, you don't get any more sewer water for your whole life.

They do it because they're black.

No, they're not.

I'm thinking of this way about the jobs that are out on the outer ring.

That people with income can't buy a house on the market.

And the government will see to it that there are other laws that are in force.

People are not discriminated against in that.

Well, I think that's a good thing.

Let's let that march out for us.

And to that, if you want me to make a speech on this, Rosie is just sitting.

Yeah, if you want me to make a little statement on this.

Yes, I agree with that.

I just think they'll do it low-key, and rather than beat them over the head, fair enough.

No problem.

Why don't we just for the fun of it have...

If you like, if you've got the time, have a couple of, I don't know, five, come over about, check his time, see if you let him come over for ten minutes.

I've got to give him something.

You know what this is?

It's a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful weapon.

I thought it hit anybody before you did that, so I can take care of you first.

I don't know.

I got a letter from Collins.

He was a hunter, like all people in Texas.

He's glad to get a date with us next time.

Be careful.

I heard it right first off.

You'd better be careful with this boy.

He's space.

He's a trespasser.

See, sir, it's never easy.

I think some time next year, too, Pete Peterson would be worth listening to.

just to give him a feel that you're thinking he has a fine.

You're working in a biome.

Good, good.

He wanted to get his feet in the ground first.

And so, but if Connelly, if you call him, if you feel he should come over, I'll send him to you at 5 o'clock.

All right.

But if you come in with him, okay, we'll give him the line.

And then, John, you continue.

You're going to work on that statement with Hodgson, or is Hodgson working on it?

I'll get it with him.

And we should try to get it for around two o'clock.

And I don't mind if the governor is mentioning the governor's part as well.

But I'd like to have made it here first.

Just charging people.

But anyway, we'll have them tied up.

We'll have them in Wilson so that it doesn't make any difference.

You can make the statement around the tree and then have it go and then let it go out.

Either way.

But you have to be well.

Bring on your press.

We'll be with you.

You have to be well.

I want you to do it.

I want to do it a little.

You know, they look here before we take the press out here.

It's probably you up there.

If I go over there.

Do you think I should go over there and introduce you?

I think so.

Right then.

I don't have to say no.

I'll say I want you to be free to answer any questions.

That's the question.

I'm not going to tell you which is which.

I want to tell you what I think.

Okay.

Bye.