Conversation 870-005

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statement in the realm of Paris and Paris, when he said that Paris had anecdotes about himself in Gramego and himself in the Chinese foreign minister.

And is the point of that kind of target to deal with both of them?

They wouldn't deal with each other.

It's related to your efforts at the time.

That's right.

Other countries are dealing with the United States.

I don't expect to donate to your efforts.

new atmosphere that was basically his thing, which was created by the president.

And Rogers found that when we had the problem with the DOW release, that there was a new respect for the president.

They know he's a hard, tough bargainer.

That's why we won.

He was able to say, the president stays by his agreement.

She stayed by yours.

And that's how we managed to resolve this.

That's essentially what he said about Paris, with regard to terrorism.

He's spoken out about it.

He, Secretary Roderick, signed a death penalty, repeated the earlier statement that he made.

He backed up this observation with his talking about how terrorists have seen him spending time in jail.

He was released by a group of other terrorists and hijacked an airplane.

And he's had his ransom in order to have these prisoners released.

He is an example.

At the time, he was called an Haitian ambassador.

Well, that's on terrorism.

Yes, I cover terrorism.

All right.

He went to Q&A to show me whenever anything went outside of that realm.

He's a gay person.

He'll probably address himself to that this evening.

We all are.

I apologize.

I just had to miss out.

Yeah, I let it go tomorrow.

They don't get it.

You see, I don't cover any of the West Nines, do you?

I either get it or they do cover it.

They've got to tell me so that I can see it.

Yes, sir.

Go ahead, Secretary Rice.

Apparently, everyone made that phone call.

They screwed up.

It's not that they didn't know.

Well, they knew something.

Oh, well, the complaint, I guess, that they didn't know what they were trying to get at, they...

He was fine.

How did it make them off?

Perfectly.

Using the killing.

I didn't know that the damn women were there.

No, no.

The fellas were not the wives.

But the robbers were made to work.

I thought they were the wives.

It didn't make any difference.

Their husbands were killed earlier.

They were killed earlier.

Or were these the two that were killed?

Olsen and Owen were killed earlier.

The ones that were killed more or no wife were not there.

Their husbands had lost their lives.

But it was handled with just the right amount of compassion for the men who were killed, on a plaque with all the others.

But also the lead, of course, underpinning all that, is a very firm stand that the United States has taken.

And using this occasion, we called for the lowering of the flags and all the rest to call upon the other nations of the world

to joining the United States in this, you know, move to deal with terrorists.

And the nation that steps aside to terrorize... Yeah, I said let it compromise the terrorists, but they may destroy the terrorist market.

Should that get people together?

Absolutely.

They'd probably pick up the line.

Well, it's not new, but the United States... And the other thing... That's right.

And the other thing that people did not...

I hope they got that.

go unnoticed when you said the United States, the policy of the United States is to do this because it will save, you know, particularly the lives that were sustained in laws there by the Foreign Service Officers.

That did not go unnoticed.

That'll be very good on television tonight.

It had to be said.

It was said, I think, just right.

Well, we've been talking about our budgetary campaign for one thing.

This gentleman has all been up testifying every hour and hour.

Yes.

And had some impressions.

The thing we come down to is the thing we discussed before, the need for that secondary advocacy out around the country.

And we're going to send a lot of servants out and around from the various domestic departments in supporting this.

And it's one of the things we want to do, at least report to you on.

Our REA settlement, so three or five cents a report on, and so didn't want to talk about.

But that's worked so far.

The report doesn't have horses out there.

They're going to have a bull out this morning.

I mean, he didn't come.

The report was postponed out on March 15th.

I don't think he's that far from caving in.

You've got clothing shops all over the place, and you've got to be proud of the chance.

What is the situation?

I suppose we don't make a settlement.

We just have to go down.

We won't make a settlement.

I think you have to do some work to do.

I think you could win on that.

Mr. President, incidentally, I shouldn't ask you to sit in on these meetings.

Sure, if you're going to talk about it.

I think you ought to let me in.

I'm finding this a good idea to get exposed to what the hell these guys are facing.

It goes further than that.

Major farm with a big casino right after.

This currently is going to come up first on the Senate Senate.

I don't think there's a tremendous chance of getting the kind of bill we want out of the Senate and the U.S. Secretary of State to adopt a re-election.

They're not about to vote to do spending.

And I want to cut this spending by at least two billion dollars.

I can't just put the amount in this income supplement that we've got.

It won't come out of the Senate.

I think there's a substantial chance that we can get the debt barrier on the House Senate bill.

Poe had me up first to initiate hearings on this farm bill in the House Senate.

And Poe knows that he can't pass on the floor of the House to kind of go to the other Senate committee.

But if the Senate passes this thing first, Poe's going to have difficulty with passing the rest of the Senate committee.

And I discussed this with Poe.

If we can get the decks clear and get an office area, but some kind of compromise, I think there's a reasonable chance that we can initiate the farm legislation on the House Senate.

hope that you've got to have a decent vendor to get tax support.

Now, I'm not in favor of compromising on spending.

And I think that we've all spoken to the fire.

But we can get it down on full rate on the GMT, because that's generating transmission on this.

And we've built a good block of these ones.

Paul, as I understand it, will probably start setting aside a part of the revolving funds that we use for REAs

That doesn't run me, because I want me 2% more.

He would probably insist on specifying criteria.

For those RAs that ought to have 2% more, it's a small number there, I would expect the same term.

He doesn't want me at the discretion to say what you think.

And I think in the final analysis that we can get back into a little bit more cost.

That's many more, but probably not as much as the current focus on straight 5%.

That's why I say it's a big concern.

It's an armed race.

And frankly, I think the part of our work is to focus on the face-saving way of doing it.

He doesn't want to report out this general Humphrey bill that puts the trade back to 2%.

He's looking for a face-saving way out.

And I think frankly, part of the administration's idea is that we're looking for a face-saving way out, too.

They have to swallow a couple of times.

Pretty hard one.

They have to swallow a couple of times here.

But we can work out a compromise.

It doesn't cost any more than the current proposal.

Let's review the bidding for Roy.

Full rate on the GMT revolving bumper RDAs.

Fixed criteria for 2%.

No additional cost over 5%.

X-ray theory 2% are both rural and economic data.

Or just rural with no economic data.

I don't know.

Some kind of criteria.

And make it so big.

Could I just say, I think it's a little different than face-saving on our side.

This is the flagship.

of all those 14 vetoes coming through.

What we do on this will be taken as a signal of our determination, our stance, and all the rest of it.

I might say that this is perhaps the easiest for the public generally to understand the abuses.

2% money, 80% non-rural.

a long program that's been on the books for many years.

The need's now satisfied largely.

It's a very easy one to sell as opposed to some of the health things and all the others that get fuzzed up with a lot of emotionalism.

This is an economy, quite a sizable chunk of money in a way that can be sold to the public, I think.

And I think of ethos as being systemic.

May I ask the timing on this one versus the one where you spread the fertilizer on the

I don't know, reach in conference up there.

That's the president up there.

That's the first.

Oh.

Get that down here.

Ladies and gentlemen, I'll be sustained.

The money this afternoon, Bob Cook, who is the chief lobbyist in town for Reedmere for Langston, came over and left with Dick Fairbanks and John Larson on my shelf.

But he's never seen me come.

He stated very frankly to them that I know I've lived on it.

And were they sure?

That's an upgrade.

Well, I was just trying to see whether they were stupid enough to bring that one to us first and get some cover on the other one.

The problem we have with the farm thing, Captain, is a very different one.

Which we have not branched in as sensitive as we might be.

Basically, those who would normally vote with us for conservatively policies are from the farm block.

Those who would normally vote with us for conservatively policies, and by conservatively, I mean by foreign policy as well, supported, unfortunately, the excessive governance things.

The question is, how can you save some of those votes for other purposes?

So you have one or two things.

Your point is that we have a compromise that gives them a victory.

My other point is that if we veto, they fail to override and we stick it to them.

What I'm concerned about is what do they do with other things.

These are not very big men.

I'm saying incredibly, but basically they're broke.

I'm being broke, y'all.

They're kind of their wine bitch.

And they say, well, God, now, if you don't give me my REA, if you don't give me my REA, if you don't give me my peanut money, the hell with you and other things.

Because that's the way they're supposed to live.

I don't know.

From the standpoint of the country, the country didn't care less about us.

We think the farmers are all rich.

They subsidize too much.

We'd like to give them the ass.

That's why it was a standard veto.

The question is the cost in terms of support from this crowd on other things.

Let us say, for example, if we're supporting Vietnam, aid to Vietnam.

It's indispensable to have some of them.

But these are the kind of guys who are so small.

And it's a melody.

It's not easier to be small.

I can't hardly think of a senator who isn't small or a houseman.

and say, well, whatever happens, we'll stand up to other things.

But the people today are basically, for the most part, people that they say, well, if you don't do that, I'm going to be against you and everything else.

That's kind of an attitude you run into.

I was wondering if there's any way we could sell what is the fact, and that is that it isn't a rural program, it isn't a farm program, it doesn't help the farmers, it helps a very small, non-farm group, really.

And it's got a nice rural name to it.

There's no problem with the rural at all.

I think we can sell it to the country.

There's no problem with that.

But I'd say, Captain, that in this instance, these guys that get dug in, I think you still need to have them.

You know, the elephant farmers and all, that's a problem too, guys.

You know, you go up there now, and every elevator that goes down, office buildings, is full of farmers.

NFO and different groups.

They're going around from place to place just lobbying the hell out of these guys.

It's pretty hard job.

This isn't far from it.

You were saying some mail had been going in.

I thought it was a pretty pivotal exercise so far.

I didn't see what he turned in.

Who turned in?

I was wondering whether anybody from Marshall had been bothered to get a few letters from the Congress.

I've got the Farm Bureau strongly on this.

They're not getting letters, but they've been.

on this side, and after that great vote up there, they listed all the congressmen that voted the way they voted.

I think Bill shared it with my old ideas.

Is that the Farm Bureau?

Yeah, I was going to attribute it to the point that Bill said, let the record show that the Farm Bureau set out for higher taxes.

The editorial composition of the Farm Bureau was

I think that's worse.

It's got to run out of program.

You've got one problem, and that is that if there's anything that's perceived as a retreat or a loss on this one, it's awfully hurtful.

Let me consider this.

I make personal contact with folks.

in his conversation with you.

What are those words?

He says, why aren't I seeing you?

Why?

I'm, of course, in a relationship with the people who are good.

I've met over a period of 20 years.

I've had a discussion with my staff.

At the proper time, I should go up and discuss with him this whole path he can put in the farm, which is the big casino.

And let him take leadership on this, which he needs.

And we can work out some

And it won't cost us any more than we're going to spend under the current straight 5% deal because we've got enough that's going to stick right now.

What about that?

Can I put another perspective on that?

When Fred Dent went up on the hill on the phase-out of EDA in the recent one, it came as a big surprise to the Public Works Committee to realize they'd been had last year by the Rural Development Committee in 1972.

Oh, yeah.

And they're furious with the idea that we have funded the Rural Development Act of 72, but we're getting rid of the EDA.

And they say, why are you doing things like that?

And we want at least some transitional money.

They're going to mark up the bill tomorrow on the House side.

Harsha is convinced he'll have one vote against it within the committee, his own.

And that on the floor, the same thing will go through, and he does feel it will go to the Senate side.

As to override, no bets at this point on what will happen.

But it seems to me to flag to the rural side in the Ag Committee that you're doing something at this point in time when they're just marking up the bills over in public works.

Man already that the Ag Committee has inherited the years with funding and EDAs phasing out.

I just don't know what kind of effect you're going to have over on this side with the EDA and regional commission legislations.

And it's very hard in any kind of logic to justify a loan program with regard to electricity and not a loan program in rural areas for other economic development, especially when the EPA's criteria are supposed to be out of migration, constant low income, persistent unemployment, and so on.

General, I'm suggesting there's a pretty good answer to that.

No, I know, but it's going to be painted as retreat.

Now, the question comes up whether you can paint that in a way that they gave up on the idea of trying to keep the programs they had.

We recognize the legitimate area in the really impoverished areas or backwards areas of the United States.

cut it there at a total cost to the federal government, the less than we were even proposing.

That's about what you're saying.

That's right.

Earl, is there something totally different the farmer could really want that we haven't taken any particular stand on that we could go all in on one?

No.

Farmers aren't happy with $45 cattle.

It's $37.

I just thought we could get something brand new into the equipment.

really is as much partners as it is both the cooperatives and the others that have an interest in the R.E.A.

as the bullets in our lives.

Basically, I think, Earl, I guess we're going to have to move the line up for the reasons that we started on that water through the dike.

Thank you.

I don't know what you can do, though, with Kogan, Nelson, and every opportunity you're raising, and the fact that they think they've got to get a compromise.

And I just want to say, well, we've got to talk about it.

You talk to everybody, John.

I'm talking to everybody.

And that'll happen.

they continue to negotiate, and the latest word I got is that the negotiations have now fallen apart, that Polk is hanging tough.

And Nelson continues to be very optimistic about getting a settlement, but Polk is not cooperating with his predictions.

But given that situation,

Okay.

Our guys feel that we ought to hang tough for a while.

Maybe the vote will come to us.

We've got another two days.

He's put his vote off in his committee because he didn't have the horses.

It's been a week, I think.

Oh, is it that long?

Well, let's hang tough for a while.

Let's hang tough for the weekend.

And then we'll be speaking to the clock there and see what we can get next week.

All right.

What's the... What's the city's attorney?

I didn't know that one.

Pardon?

A big bill?

You've got a big bill for transition.

We didn't take this into account on this summer.

Well, according to Paul, we have.

And as a matter of fact, if there... Let me say on that score, you know my opinions on such programs.

And so the difficulty is that having in that particular study...

Even though we have it, you may have problems in the cities.

If you have problems and you don't have it, then we have the responsibility for the varieties in the cities.

So out of those circumstances, we better at least appear to be reasonable.

That's what I'm talking about.

I think you've got it.

I don't know where the hell you are.

Well, according to Paul, and it's really over in CAPS area, but according to Paul, there was a continuing resolution at $1 billion for the PEP programs, these public employment programs.

And due to some fluke in the last continuing resolution, the one that they passed about three days ago, it may well be that the continuing resolution will be at $1,250,000, which was the level you have been asking for for this program.

and would be within our budget with respect to it, ergo $250 million available for the neighborhood youth programs, which when added to, and Paul wanted to reconfirm these figures, another $300 million that's available out of transportation, recreation, and a number of other programs, pulls you up to a very respectable figure for the year.

Now, Paul promised to get back to them.

on that, and that we would advise them as soon as the paper had been brought in to you for signature on the continuing resolution.

But he was very hopeful that this is all a tempest in a teapot, and there is actually money in the budget to do it.

Now that, all I can tell you is what he told me, because we were outside our territory.

As you gathered from that meeting, their main key is in that public employment program in the neighborhood UK.

On the urban renewal and so on, they make some noises.

But it isn't terribly acute.

But this is a place where they are zeroing in on us.

But here again, after you left the room, they're more timid while you're there.

They started hammering at some of the others.

And Cohen from Minneapolis, St. Paul,

was spouting off about, there are many other priorities, too, you fellows aren't doing in the transition.

And very frankly, if we let all those bars down, we're just going to be at ground zero again.

Now, hopefully, on things like this, we can do it with some sleight of hand, because I agree with you.

I wouldn't want to be in the position of the city in real trouble this summer, and they zeroed in on our not having funded this for the transition year.

But Paul's indicating the money's there.

And Griff was at least lying.

They're after the wait to see what happens in the course of the next week.

So my suggestion is to have it with Paul.

The perception that we have agreed to transition funding makes it very difficult with education and other things where we've taken the line that, no, special revenue sharing or nothing.

If you don't get the special revenue sharing, the programs stop, and therefore we're trying to put all the pressure on.

If it's perceived that we gave ground on

transition funding for some programs why everybody will ask why don't you do it on education and I don't know why all I saw was a little APL that the mayors have said they have guaranteed transition funding and whether this is so or not this was I think late last night five mayors emerged from the White House and said today they had been promised transition funding and that read very badly yeah yeah

Yeah.

And then when you read the newspaper comments, you go out and read the promise.

Well, that's right.

But I mean, I think if we did not, then maybe something ought to be said fairly soon, because there are also a lot of other things where we've been saying.

no special revenue sharing, no funding, that the only way you're going to get a continuation is to give us the special revenue.

The position that was taken in here is a position we've been taking all along.

Now, you call this a convenient generality.

You say that the transition we have provided, and frankly, there is transition provided, is not satisfactory in certain areas that it hurts you.

Don't talk in generalities to us.

Give us the specifics.

We're not saying there's anything we can do about it, but before we can even consider the problem, we've got to have you zero in on what the priorities are of the things that bother you.

Now, pursuant to that kind of discussion, they came in with a pep in the NYC that it has top-level priorities.

And as I say, hopefully, something can be done with that by way of clarification.

That's not concession.

It's clarification of what's already in the budget.

And as Scripps was about to leave, he started saying something about, well, then what I'll say is that the president intends to give relief in this area.

And I said, Nick, I said, that isn't what he said at all with respect to this.

He said, we want the specifics of what's going on.

And then Paul shines in and gave the exact languages to the continuing resolution part of it.

Because we can't be painted at this point, in my judgment, as having relaxed anything.

If we do, the whole thing goes down the drain.

Now, the press confuses this.

For example, yesterday, I talked about Romney's specific program commitments on housing and told him, for Pete's sake, hold your water in effect until we come up with our announcements on that.

If you're not happy with that, then scream, but don't scream, though, then.

The press took that, and very deliberately, only in one paper, cast that around as being specific program commitments in other areas.

But the press generally didn't take it that way.

But we've got to be very careful with this, or that whole type of, whether it's EDA, whether it's older Americans, whether it's relocation money for people that get out of their homes, the thing can go down the drain.

Let me just say, too, Mr. President, I really do think that this business of getting out on the road and repeating what we said and got such good mileage on, on REA and on REED and on the water and sewer and the rest of it,

There's been a lull out there, in my judgment, where it isn't coming across.

When I talk to people in Cleveland, for example, they have us pictured now at a budget level that's probably somewhere around where he took office in 1969.

And we've just got to put forth one heck of an effort to show that isn't so.

Are you going to go out and prove the budget's big?

No.

I was just about to say, that's a no.

You've got to really do both sides.

You've got to lose both sides.

You will?

If you go out in terms of, if you go out in terms and say, look here, we've doubled this, and we all say this, well, let's see the figure of what the President says.

The mayor of the town where you're going has just come out last week and said, the president has cut my next year's budget by 40%.

And that means that we can't have this, we can't have that, we can't have the other thing.

What you have to say is, ladies and gentlemen, your mayor was talking to you about great expectations.

As a matter of fact,

We're not cutting his next year's budget by 40%.

What we're cutting is his next year's expectations.

And it's not any reflection on the mayor, because all through the Johnson and Kennedy years, the mayor's got in the habit of expecting that next year would be twice as big as this year, and up and up and up.

And you see what the president's done is to bring things back to reality, to real life, to the fact that federal dollars aren't make-believe money.

They're real money, and they come out of your pocket.

And so he's cutting back, and the fact is he's actually sending more money to the cities this year than he sent last, but he's cutting back on those phony expectations out in the future.

When your mayor says that's a 40% cut, don't you believe it?

It isn't a 40% cut.

And you try and deflate it that way, and that's the only way I know to handle it, and still have the...

argument, but why didn't you give him the tax thing, which is still awfully big, and say that, yes, there have been increases that we had to allow because three-quarters of the budget is uncontrollable, and we've done that.

We've held the increases to a point where they will not require a tax increase, and that if the things the mayor is talking about all went through, every single one of them, the amount he was expecting, you'd have between a 15% and a 20% income tax increase.

And I think that, again, is the thing that had went up.

You don't make that argument, you're lost.

I don't think I'm going to save too many lives by protesting about it.

Well, I agree.

I realize that you may say it's the folks up here, but in terms of the country, it's pretty black and white.

They're either talking about their issue or the rest.

I guess the only one we can possibly do is on taxes.

That's very... Well, it isn't just taxes.

It's the idea that somebody finally is doing something about federal bureaucracy and federal spending.

Oh, I'll say.

I think reversing a trend is... Maybe there are better ways of phrasing it, but what you are doing is really revolutionary, and it's the first time in about 30 years that anybody has tried to do this.

And that, I think, is a problem at any given point.

And then when you relate it to the taxes, you can drive it home.

But

It is really a very remarkable thing.

And all these people are writing around talking about how the powers of the presidency are being increased.

The thing that's happening is the president, for the first time in at least 30 years, is trying to diminish the size and power of the federal government.

I'm not sure we can talk about the power of the federal government.

It's the other one that I'm watching, sir.

We're writing a article out about the point we're talking about.

Almost any of these other areas do believe in power from the federal government.

It's a complete change, a complete reversal of the trend, and that's a very difficult thing to do, and that produces all kinds of outcries from people who just want to keep on doing what we were doing.

So you have this problem, basically.

This is what it is.

You have to realize...

Most congressmen and senators, as I said, are based in Georgia.

And to begin with, second, most congressmen and senators, including most Republicans who claim to be conservative, will regard the project and their district to be liberal.

And so that is why on this issue we have a hell of a battle to fight with the Congress.

I think the thing to do, though, as I mentioned to the leaders this morning, and I think what you've got to do as far as a congress is to quit screwing around with the Senate.

Don't waste any time.

On anything that has to do with a veto, there's no way you're going to sustain any veto in the Senate.

I told Scott this this morning.

The Kennedy thing is a lot of work.

It's not a lot of work.

Now, we need them, for example, on the trade bill, and then we'll get them in.

We don't need them on the trade bill, and then we'll get them in.

But our vetoes forget it.

All we need to concentrate is your evidence for things totally in the House.

Totally in the House.

And that means on the Republicans in the House and about 15 Democrats.

All the others.

In other words, look at the matching number, 145, wherever it is, and go for that.

Forget the Senate.

Don't waste any time on the Senators.

None, one, ever, on anything that has to do with these next three weeks.

Put them off to the side.

Way off to the side.

The difficulty with most of us here, most of you too, because the Senate is supposed to be a big shot, and the Governor has spent too much time on it.

Forget it.

They can't open it up.

The Senate cannot open it up.

They don't spend any time on it.

Later on, we'll have to do it.

But this is a very important strategic decision that we've got to pound home.

And that means butter up those House members and just say, we'll give you the sentence to be responsible.

Now, that will burn the ass off of some of our Republicans over there.

They need another burner.

Because they don't stand up.

They do not stand up.

And since they don't have the courage to stand up when they're in the United States Senate, which, of course, they should have a lot more than the House, all these House guys come up for election.

Most of these senators, or many of the senators that are presently are bitching around, people like Stevens and Curtis and others, the Christchurch that just got elected and ran about 15% behind the president of the United States.

So they can afford to be states that don't count.

The Senate is none of it.

Now, the other thing, though, is it's a criminal business.

I didn't about it.

It's a little hard to get it right.

It's a real question.

He totally agrees, disagrees, with the idea that we ought to go out and explain that we're not cutting this, we're not cutting that, we're not cutting that.

down, but you are.

So you've just got to say, hell yes, we're cutting things, and we're cutting them because we don't want to tax them.

Just keep it on that line.

I think myself that he could be wrong in a sense.

I mean, he could be right up to this point.

The moment you confuse an issue, if you tell the people in one breath, look, all we're doing

We're spending $18 billion more.

We've increased civil rights expenditures by 350%.

We've increased police stance expenditure by 375%.

We've increased aid to the aged by 88%.

We've increased aid to education by 92%, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

The moment you say that, then you see your average listener.

But you're doing that, of course, to say, no, we're not all that bad.

We're really very compassionate, et cetera.

But then at the end you say, no, it's really a question of whether we're not going to increase anything that gives you a tax increase.

So you try, in a sense, to be a liberal and a conservative at the same time, and it won't work.

There's your problem.

Now, when I say it hasn't, let me put it this way, it hasn't worked yet, I think in the public mind today, I fear there's a considerable amount of confusion on this point.

Now, there may not be.

There may not be for another reason, is that the attacks that are being made on us are violent to the effect that we're just cutting hell on our head, probably creating depression for a bunch of scrooges.

Now the question is, and this really gets back to Earl's earlier slide, the question is, do we react to these attacks by, frankly, going on the offensive, not on the tax issue, but on the issue of, look, we're not all that bad.

I can argue with that.

But if you are, you've got to remember it's a very basic decision.

The moment you go out and say to the farmers, look, we're not going to make it bad.

We love you and all that.

We're spending a hell of a lot more than we used to and more than we ought to.

You go out to the cities and all the rest of them and say you're going to do bad.

You talk to the city people and say, look, the bottom line is still that you're going to get as much as you did before.

They probably are.

They're going to get $2.3 billion, which is more than our categorical grant.

That's because you can't turn it off.

Right, no.

Just making your point.

Sure.

Well, it's the pipeline.

In the urban renewal model cities and related programs, what we're coming up with in 75, with the slippage year in there, is more than our 1973 appropriation for all those categorical programs.

Not by much, but a little bit.

I think you make a mistake in the rhetorical area in going through this litany of so many percent up and so many percent up and so many percent down.

We had it in all these speeches.

Yeah, that's why I, frankly, followed through on it in the news on the tube.

That's what Scott wanted this morning.

Sure, I know.

Scott wants to speak a little.

There's another way of getting at this, it seems to me, and that is to say,

Who in this room wants to defend every single federal president as perfect?

And of course there isn't any perfect.

Then you say, trust the president.

He's exercising common sense here.

That's sort of the Vietnam argument applied domestically.

The president knows more than you do about what needs to be done here.

And maybe you can use a little example.

I've had a lot of fun with the example of Congress appropriating $15 million for a dam, and then we discovered that it only costs $12.

Now, Hubert Hufford insists that even though it only costs $12, we've got to spend the $15 million.

Now, that is a common sense, and yet that's what the Congress is arguing.

Now, to take the further example, let's suppose that the Congress has located that dam on Quicksand.

and we can build it for 12.

Should the president spend the 12 and build a dam, or should he exercise common sense?

Well, obviously, some congressmen would rather have the president build a dam and have it kill a lot of people.

The president feels he'd get the right not to spend that money if a mistake has been made in the program as it's been enacted by the Congress.

Now let's go to the next step.

The way CBS covers that is to show a picture of a hungry little kid

and said, that little kid's father couldn't have a job driving a truck to build the dam if only the president would build the dam on a quick set.

And of course, when Daniel Shore comes on and shows you the picture of the little kid, it's argued that the president has no compassion for that little kid because he won't build the dam.

I said, look out for anybody that argues to you compassion as a basis for the spending of federal dollars, because there's always more to it than just that.

And then I get out of it just as fast as I can before they stop to think about that too long.

But I've used that two or three times, and it's gone pretty well.

I think if we get into this business of are we stopping community action agencies, and community action agencies, good or bad, and how much we're cutting out and how much we're putting into the head start and all that kind of thing, we're down on their level.

And we can't win that argument.

There's only program by program.

No, you can't program by program.

And I think that's a very good set of examples.

There are one or two that are very blatant.

And community action programs are things that do head start and follow through and all that stuff.

And they can be done by direct applications.

If you do them through the community action formula, you lose 40% of it because that's over here.

That's what goes with it.

So you can pick out a few specific examples.

I say in all of these talks,

The problem is that there are a lot of people around who are still measuring compassion by the amount of dollars the government puts in.

And their whole theory is that as soon as you have a dollar, that's right.

And that you don't show compassion by that.

You show compassion by what the president is doing by trying to focus these dollars on the people who need them, not on a lot of overhead or a lot of salary, but on people who actually need them.

And when you do that, for less money, you can get better results.

And I think these are all variations of the same thing.

But this idea that you show your compassion or your commitment by spending money is a very easy one to refute, if anybody will listen.

But the only other thing I'd say on the Senate, and I agree with that 100%, but I think it's time to go on the attack.

Because the Senate, we are now...

the middle of a series of spectaculars that certain senators are, Teddy Kennedy, Muskie and a few others, are planning in their committee hearings.

They're going three, four, and five a week.

And they are getting all the television cameras up, and none of our Republicans will object if they could, by a single objection, keep them all up.

And they're banging the table and checking their watches to see if it's time for the evening news deadline, which is about 11.30 in the morning, and then they get mad right at that point.

I've been through it now for about five in a row, and it's a regular pattern.

And I think we ought to try some way, I don't know the best way, to take the offensive against that and talk about the phoniness of the whole thing.

just look for this kind of thing, day after day, and it's all part of the political campaign, starting two to three years early.

So the only add-in to my put-off-the-sun strategy is to try to take the offensive against it and predict what they're going to do and try and pull the rug out from under them on that.

Again, it's a demagogic kind of... Who would you cut in that?

Well, I try to do it myself during the hearings, but I don't know that you can do it very successfully that way.

But I just think if we could get a few people...

to make this point in one way or another, either by speeches or maybe a few of the friendly writers or a few of them around or something of this kind.

We could let the people know what to expect.

But I don't know if you... Mr. President, I rest on this record here.

I'm just a simple country boy.

I get lost...

Hold your wallet.

I get lost in these things.

I've gone through these farm wages.

I hope you take that cut.

And also, the president asked me to get you in there.

And that's our day.

Now, the rest of this stuff is just water to the dam.

How many of you know that you're better off than you are a year ago?

We've got a lot of folks who do that.

I'll say a part of that, you'd better always keep your taxes under control.

And a part of that is we don't spend all this money on these silly things.

And I'll get into detail about it.

You've got more money to spend.

That's what we want.

And the point of it is that, I know we've had some difficulty with the unemployment rate, but, God, the increase in employment is enough in this country.

And the increase in wages is probably what was the other thing he said, is, you know, the increase in real wages is great.

And I think in the opposite, a part of that is, our goal is to give you, the individuals, more money to spend the way you want to spend it.

And we've got jobs out here, we've got to quantify that, we've made progress here, and the farming company's up.

And one of the ways to have you spend that money is, I'll use this illustration, I was a farmer, I went back and said, how are you doing?

Well, plenty of money cost me, and I stopped, and I was beginning to stop.

And that's the argument I'm using.

But that was a detail.

I lost that to myself.

I suppose what we're...

What do you tell these pro-Congressmen?

Because Scott comes in at 4, and they say, you've got to give us a chapter first, right?

Isn't that right?

That's it.

Is that what he was asking today?

Yeah.

All of us are going up.

At the same time, I talked to his AA last night, and they've got their stuff stacked.

Oh, we have one.

But Harsha, Harsha, Frankie, I did the same one.

He says, we don't have it.

I don't have it anywhere.

I knew damn well his AA had it, and I called him in.

It had been provided, but we got it to them again.

But their other point, the other point was that it isn't getting to my people, that what you're doing is not cutting everything back to the Middle Ages.

That's strange coming out of the Harsha, because Harsha is not exactly the most liberal human being I've heard in my life.

But he says, I'm kind of a father confessor.

He says, sure, tax increases are important.

Because that's kind of giving him a needle on it.

We want people to be on the wrong side of this.

Bill and I know each other pretty well.

He says, look, I'm like a precinct captain.

They come to me when they want the kids circumcised and so on.

He says, the problem I have out there is it is playing back in my community that the president is cutting us way back and taking away everything he's done over a period of time.

And that doesn't play well.

that we're reversing ourselves and taking away what we've given.

Well, it's obvious they're not getting that mail and people who support them.

That's unfortunate.

That's right.

That's why I said earlier, Mr. President, this is why I got a big report from Rudy, and he gives me a lot of long stuff here, and I don't think...

I think that's why the campaign idea that John mentioned is very necessary now.

I don't know if it is, though.

I don't know anybody who really wants to do it.

But I think it is necessary because all that's getting out is the streams of the special interests that we hear in Washington and which float out into the country on sort of reflection.

I think it needs to be countered, and I think there are plenty of people who can counter it.

I think some of the local Republican organizations can stir up some kind of novel.

What I get in my news clips, the HUD news clips all the time, is 300,000 cut by Nixon in X program, and they play that about every three or four days.

One after another, day after day.

And that's the way it's being said to the people.

And we get an overall impression that, my God, we're going to be down to the post office and the defense establishment, and that's it.

There are some good editorials becoming part of that, Jim, as your regional structure, which is not the most loyal in the world.

Is that right?

I think you are, as you said, quite responsible for this.

And in the next 30 days, or in the next 45 days, it won't take anybody to do it.

I mean, we can do it ourselves.

I'll look at it later.

Sir, good operation.

There's supposed to be a couple people around here who know something about that.

I don't know how they're doing it.

Maybe we'll find out.

There's plenty of material.

I'm sure.

Let's set up a search.

Why don't you tell them this?

They're having a cabin fire action.

John, I'm sorry.

I don't want to spread it.

Thank you, Mr. Thompson.

Spread it.

You see, you can't do state defense on writing.

But here's what he says.

Key trading organizations and business groups, I think this is just OSHA, have been contacted with firm commitments from the Chamber of Commerce, the National OSHA, and in fact, the American Retail Federation, the American Society of Associations, the National Root State Board, the American Bank Association, the President of the American Bank Association, and those from the Center of Explanation.

Thank you.

National Association of Manufacturers, for example, is going to send out a letter.

The Chamber of Commerce is going to put out ads.

That is the work of God and Dan.

Not the work of Dan.

Ads aren't the work of Dan.

Don't even believe me.

That just supports his figures.

I don't need it.

Write letters.

That's it.

I want to ask Jim in his office here, can we get him in?

How do we get him in the conference?

Sure.

Here's what he says, and if this doesn't work, he's going to get a job.

I think this is all, all boilerplate.

I've seen these kinds of memorandums before.

It's too much to figure out.

But actually, the idea, and by the N.A.M., and Senator Bill Google, has kind of helped us on that.

He's nuts.

What they need is to tell their own damn members all over the underlying is to write 30 letters apiece.

to their congressmen and senators, the right and the right.

If only they would do that.

It can be done.

I don't think he's experienced enough.

That's the problem.

There he is.

I don't know how many other parts in the last week.

I'm going to speak like TV coverage and newspaper coverage if you get it on.

On this fiscal issue, the Indianapolis paper said Secretary of the National Council doesn't discuss any country.

It discusses fiscal policy.

The only other way that might be was to get in touch with your senator in Congress.

I don't know if you believe this.

Is it going to take some time?

The best investment we can make is to spend valuable time.

It comes across the country.

They have to provide some news coverage.

It's on many places.

It's the only thing there is to talk about.

They've got to give us a report.

Well, we've been talking about going back to our regional press briefing device, get those legal guys and those small-town dailies to come in and get rid of them.

Okay.

This is right here, Senator.

The conference is right here.

Two months ago.

You said you'd bring this right in support.

Well, we'll get an integrated plan pulled together by tomorrow.

You see, the problem I know is, Jonathan,

they suggested that I should go out and do reading on briefings and so forth on that.

So I can't do that because there's no time in the next two months that that can be done.

No, you don't have to go out and do that.

And also, I think there was a...

I've analyzed the results of those.

They are...

If you can get the people to pretend about it, it isn't really worth it.

And I can do a hell of a lot more by doing something here than I can there.

other hand, we must get a cabinet officer going out.

All the rest can be extremely effective if you get the actuarial team going out and get the people to buy a regional press thing.

What do you think you're going to get out of an editorial system?

I think that's going to help.

You get three things, I think.

You get regional television, number one, in a quality that you don't get through the networks that will hold you to a minute, to a minute and a half.

to the center of regional television for your remarks and for a substantial amount of grief.

Secondly, you get a backlog or a reservoir of editorials that will come over a period of two or three weeks, like you got on those revenue sharing briefings.

We just got all kinds of favorable editorials over a sustained yield basis.

And then, of course, you get your spot newspaper coverage in newspapers that ordinarily don't carry a favorable administration story, a weekly, for instance, that wouldn't be writing about revenue sharing.

I can say with my own speeches that even a UPI or AP stringer out in the hinterland just gives you a much better break than you get...

I mean, but they just didn't.

And he got us out.

And I think it's true.

It's totally true.

Yeah.

We can't break through a Washington.

Right.

But you're big news in the country.

And therefore, you've got to go to the.

And you get the four columns in the paper.

You're absolutely a many.

If I go to the country, I get a whole lot less national.

if I do it here.

I'll do that.

But if the captain protects 30 days, once a week, or twice a week, or three days, he can turn his desk around.

And the fourth thing, John, is that we ought to deliberately have that message at each time include a strong recommendation that they write to their congressman.

And we ought to try to introduce mail

I don't know what you're saying.

Yeah, now get John D. to tell us exactly how to phrase it, will you?

Because if we saturate on that, you're putting yourself in a position where the guy on the other side can start screaming lobbying expense when you went out to the hinterlands.

You need to be very careful.

You can say it, but you've just got to know how to say it.

The general counsel in the M. Yes, I know.

There is a problem there because, you see, you'll be on government planes and all that sort of thing.

If you go out and

But you can say whatever your views are, your responsibility as a citizen here is to communicate with your elective office.

You're not telling them to do a thing one way or another.

But if you do it right, you can get the message across.

Well, now, we have a domestic council meeting on Friday.

Is that the one that you set up for Jordan?

Urban League.

Right.

Urban League.

Well, there's no reason why you can't take a half hour at the beginning of it.

I mean, Jordan, for God's sakes, that's just two for him and one for us.

Or none, I should say.

I mean, we're just doing it, you know.

We're giving them the money to help us in our different actions.

Why don't you get out and do something good?

I know you used to take the whole cabin and have Rogers and Richardson test it.

They cannot get to this.

Everybody else is a member of the domestic council, right?

So didn't he turn to John?

He could do some good.

I'd like to talk about that.

I'd like to point this out a little deeper than Kat, undersecretary of assistance.

Absolutely.

They are good people.

Senate bill of assistance secretaries.

the moment both cabinet and undersecretary Thurman also are responding to invitations and this way we can kind of make our own plan and go on places that we feel most important and sort of carry the attack instead of just picking up an organization here, an organization there that happens to have... What you virtually have to do is to give them talking points in regard to a very simple line you want to get across so that they don't go out and talk about what they're doing to rebuild the city and all that kind of stuff.

I think we're getting nothing at the moment.

You don't think we're getting anything?

I don't think there's any.

Well, I don't know.

A lot of us, of course, we're in this transitional period of the new job and the like.

I don't know.

Well, and you also have your confirmations.

and then staffing up.

The place is still pretty hollow.

I have two other town trips in the month.

There's just no travel for me.

I did that one.

I need to get out next month.

I've got to get out a bunch of flights a week.

Really?

If I'm going to do this job, I get to fight back to Mace Farmer Town when I settle on this deal.

Yeah.

Well, we'll have something more important, right?

Well, let's try to get a game

But I really want you to rip that broody out that's right in the ass.

They're either going to do the work or be an entirely new group.

But I don't want to hear this boilerplate stuff anymore.

See, what I think they do is they sit down over cocktails and lunch and so forth and say, no, the head guy with the chamber of commerce, the head guy may be able to do this and that, and they don't do a goddamn thing.

Now, the main thing is that they've got to be kicked and say their lives depend upon it.

It does.

Their taxes depend upon it.

and you get a report from them, and you riot, and you whip them, and you burn them, until they do it, probably it can't be done in the wild.

Probably it has to be done by somebody outside.

But I'm quite disappointed about that, John, because I raised this a month ago, and I just kept them off their tails.

And I don't think they've done it.

I've reported a case that they've contacted people to sort of put some ads in the paper.

That's the lazy man's way to do something.

That is what we want.

We want them to write a circular letter to every one of their members, and every one of their members agrees to write 100 letters.

That's the way to do it.

It's the letters of these, the congressmen and the senators are all so parochial and ignorant these days in terms of government.

They weigh their mail.

They don't weigh the evidence.

They're held in mail.

They're not even smart enough to notice the farm mail anymore.

A lot of mail.

Because basically, a lot more reason to have administrative system treatment than those political people.

They don't know anything.

Mr. President, another suggestion I'd like to drop in the hopper here.

We're not very far from the 1974 election.

I think it would play a setback if we had a chance to take a house up there.

If you could add just one house and then accomplish under our coalition, we'd accomplish what we may do in six years.

Yeah.

This number, this number, I asked George, Gloria Shepard, Jim Johnson, it's very attractive, what he's checking, I don't know.

And I don't know unless you still can't find it.

And we sat there for an hour and a half, discussing what is, which I can make $11 billion, but I'm not going to get into their own political.

Sure.

George appreciated this.

I did this a year ago with Ann Armstrong.

on it.

Now, I think that George and Janet would appreciate a similar session.

Every major can be a department.

Probably if there's a location.

And I asked George, I said, no, if we keep an identity on the district out here in the barn there, we've got a chance of picking up a contribution.

And we can do this like Barrett, or put money there, we can put projects in there, we can work toward this now.

And he said, well, it's a great idea.

And to begin right now, for the 1970 World Congressional elections, I think it would make some over, it may make some overstep in that direction.

It would enable some of those congressmen up there who don't want to manage for us.

He said, we work in the House, and I quite agree with him.

I think that's what we need to work for.

And you might drop this suggestion to the emergency cabinet members, the emergency people, that we make the initiative in making this open to them.

We have a problem there.

houses, you know, those houses are so incumbent-minded that they, uh, I mean, there's a behold, all the incumbents are still in minority.

And you've got all the incumbents that you made to get candidates, and that's quite, that's really what we've got in the Brock.

What was that?

What did they do?

Scott is today going over the meeting.

He wants, uh,

Cotton.

Cotton, you're running the act.

He wants, uh, uh, Saxby.

No, no.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, that's all.

Cotton.

And, uh, three or four.

Yeah.

Now, none of them should run.

None of them should run.

They're fine people.

But none of them should run.

They're all too old.

As a matter of fact, Scott probably shouldn't have won.

I don't say that critically.

Margaret Smith obviously shouldn't.

Cotton shouldn't run again.

And yet they'll run.

If they do run, I predict every one of them will lose.

It's a young man's world these days.

And they cannot run people over 70 anymore.

They've got to quit it.

They've got to go back and not run them over 50 anymore.

The House, not over 40, for the Senate, not over 50.

Nobody over 50 should run.

I mean, for the first time.

For the first time.

Not worth it.

Why elect a senator when he's 60?

For God's sakes, he can only be in for two terms.

Maybe three.

Some of that came from...

But you don't see it.

That's why our people are not standing up for me.

You heard Scott today.

He suggested me.

Now, for example...

Bill Young's going to run.

Maybe he can win.

But Bill Young is 74 years of age.

Huh?

Bill Young is 74 years of age.

He ought to step aside.

Mark Andrews was a while there, but he can win.

So there it is.

But there is a thing we're up against there, so don't have any illusions about this.

How do you get this message to the message?

I can't tell them because we need their votes at the moment.

But the point is that somebody, there's where your party leader should step into it.

And he can't do it too bluntly because even he will say, I'm told you this.

But I can assure you that that is a problem.

On the other side, I hope the Democrats run on their own.

We should just go right down the line.

I don't care.

Any Democrat that's over 70 years of age can run somebody against him.

He got 80% last time.

It might be this time.

It just might be.

That's the rule of the state.

George is going to agree with you on that.

I'm sure that, you know, today, just to keep Scott forward and putting him on fire, I feel like George is going to be talking about that sort of campaign.

Let's all just remember, Bush is the man.

Look at what Earl was saying in the House study.

He was always pushing for the White House.

We don't have any political strategy left.

We don't want one.

We're going to have to get to Bush.

keep the politics over there, because we'll have money in here, and Bush is the man.

Okay, but I think it would be okay for you to talk to the cabinet, except Spain, in defense, at 77 to 74 is coming up.

Sure.

And I'll let George, you see, I work with George.

I'll do that.

We'll do that.

Ask him to make speeches.

But I must say that I know that Parker is apparently in charge of now the speeches, but he's in charge of the presidential state.

No.

I think we have to get a separate surrogate scheduler for this project.

I was thinking that.

I don't see him having the time.

He has the ability.

We'll get the fellow back who did the surrogate scheduling during the campaign.

He's one of the departments, and we'll pull him back and let him set it up.

Sure.

Who is it?

O'Donnell.

Yes.

Get a good man.

Put him in.

He's the son of a general.

That's very good.

Then I think what you've got to do is that...

You've got to get what you say.

There's a lot of you that the Congress has got to be done from outside the White House.

That's why I think it really is Brian's fault.

But I don't think, first, that he's got to be experienced.

And second, I just don't think it's a good thing for a White House person to sit down with these people and do it.

I didn't have in mind to even come to these people.

I had in mind to be talking to somebody in the outcasts or somebody that promoted from outside the outcasts.

have to do it.

It's got to be a, don't you agree?

You see, it has to be done on the outside because of the idea that the White House, ergo the president, is trying to lobby the Congress by getting a letter out of the thing.

It was that much.

But if it comes from the outside, these folks, in fact, instead of asking them, God damn it, they should be crawling in here saying, what, how can we help right-wingers?

This doesn't have any harm to us.

They're all for what we're doing.

And why the hell don't they help right-wingers?

I think they want to, but I don't know how.