Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 559-018
Date: Tuesday, August 10, 1971 at 2:38 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Cole, Kenneth R., Jr.; Shultz, George P.
Recording device: Oval Office
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/559-018

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:00] Well, we have actually a group of bills, but there are two that represent problems.
[0:28] One is the agriculture, and the other is Labor and TW.
[0:30] The problems are
[0:31] thinking labor HW.
[0:37] That in budget authority, it's $813 million over your budget.
[0:44] And in outlay, it's about $414 million over your budget.
[0:54] The difficulties presented by that are that, speaking largely of the outlay side, a approximately $232 million overage for social services
[1:01] Here we've tried to limit the payments of the federal government to the states under this program.
[1:22] We were unsuccessful last year.
[1:23] We've been unsuccessful again this year.
[1:25] Probably we'd be unsuccessful in a veto attempt.
[1:26] It's something to cover up.
[1:27] Yes, sir.
[1:27] I'll come back in a minute on both of these bills.
[1:28] The bulk of the obligational authority and about half the overlay effect in HEW is in health programs.
[1:31] hospital construction, alcoholism, regional medical programs, community mental health, and so on.
[1:47] So that's where the overages are in Library GW.
[1:49] Now, on that bill, Timmons' report
[1:51] that he doesn't believe that we would have much chance at all of sustaining a veto on the Labor AGW bill.
[2:09] It passed the House 372 to 25, passed the Senate 88 to nothing.
[2:11] Conference report was adopted by the House 280 to 56 and by the Senate 79 to nothing.
[2:18] And he just, he doesn't think that people have the
[2:21] the stomach to go against health appropriations on the one hand, and that the service, the social service aspect of it is, the Congress wants that and they've demonstrated that.
[2:44] We just aren't going to persuade them otherwise.
[2:46] So that's the Labor AGW Bill.
[2:47] The Agriculture Bill is $1,172,000,000 over the budget and obligation authority.
[2:50] about 452 over in outlays for 72.
[3:00] The agriculture part of that bill is the overages there are partly our doing and things that we have gone along with in one way or another.
[3:15] And by and large, as this bill has evolved, we are in no position to complain about it.
[3:18] The argument comes in
[3:20] a basic sewer and water facilities program administered by HUD that's added on to the agriculture bill for an additional $500 million.
[3:39] We didn't request any appropriation there.
[3:40] We were going to fund the program out of 1971 money at a $200 million level.
[3:44] They've upped that ante to $700 million in effect.
[3:47] So there,
[3:49] Well, there are objections to some parts from the standpoint of your budget to other parts of the bill.
[3:56] That is the big thing.
[3:58] There the problem seems to be that you would be vetoing a farm bill because of a city water and sewer grant.
[4:06] And while you could say that, it would be very difficult to make that point and get it across clearly.
[4:16] Timmons thinks that a veto of that bill could be sustained in the House.
[4:34] Uh, the votes on that one, uh, passed the House by a voice vote, and the Congress report was adopted by the House, 230 to 162.
[4:40] So he thinks that 162 represents sufficient strength to sustain a veto.
[4:41] It's a, it's a weird mixture.
[4:42] Frank Bogle didn't sign the conference report.
[4:44] You have 96 Republicans, 66 Democrats against it.
[4:52] It was a combination of conservatives and big city liberals that came together on this thing.
[5:09] The timid group lines up against the veto of this.
[5:10] You talked to Bryce Harlow about it.
[5:11] I mean, I'm very difficult to handle that.
[5:17] The Agriculture Department, Secretary of Agriculture, is very much worried about a veto of this, particularly since we don't have any argument with the agricultural appropriation.
[5:39] John Ehrlichman, I talked to this morning briefly, and again, he is reluctant to see a veto of either of these bills.
[5:44] And I think in part his feeling is that
[5:47] that there's all of this doubt about the economy and is hardly doing enough and so on and somehow the they feel that isn't quite right for it similar to john connolly's reasoning about it much of some of the overages in both cases could be held back by us as we could impound the funds or alternatively we could
[6:13] We could not impound them, but we could sort of instruct the agencies to make a very little company of grants and take a long time about it and so on.
[6:37] In the OMB, where I should say in your office, we have taken a pounding on the impoundment thing, and there is a lot of legislation about it.
[6:40] I don't know how far we can push that, but I guess if it were to be done,
[6:42] probably it's better done as part of a big package of some sort.
[7:05] So do we still have the option at a later point as part of a bigger package of a lot of this line?
[7:07] We could hold back probably on outlays out of the roughly 850 that's
[7:09] Adding the two bills, we could probably cut that in half.
[7:29] I saw the question of whether you want to have a statement in connection with them or just sign them and let Ron announce that you've let it go.
[7:36] I'll sign those.
[7:40] the budget that you're developing, and every possible way to screw it up, screw up the funds.
[7:56] Particularly with the, I want those darn funds to stand out.
[7:57] I don't agree with the way you're doing the environment, but it's a good program.
[7:59] It's sort of, so I want that one.
[8:04] Well, in the social service of limits, we can, really, because that's one of these things where
[8:32] where we, in effect, honor the bills that are rendered to us.
[8:37] So there's nothing much we can do about it.
[8:42] We'll probably have to go for a supplemental at some point in order to be able to pay those bills.
[8:47] In health areas, we probably can do some holding back.
[8:50] For instance, the NIH appropriation, the research people think that's more money than they can use in any effective way.
[8:57] So I think we can probably dance that down some.
[9:07] Oh, I didn't talk about him now.
[9:14] Say hello to Mr. Gregg.
[9:15] That's true.
[9:15] We'll be fine with you in a little later time.
[9:16] Okay, thanks for your time.