April 11, 1973
Page 11872
BUDGET PROPAGANDA
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, according to recent reports in the press, the White House is launching a major propaganda campaign against the Congress over the issue of Federal spending.
Public relations kits prepared and distributed to high-ranking Federal officials refer to the "far- out 15" – 15 Federal programs which, according to the administration, will break the back of the American taxpayer.
These kits, entitled "The Battle of the Budget, 1973," contain guidelines for presenting the administration's point of view, including instructions to Federal officials on where, when, and how to warn taxpayers of the danger of congressional "tampering" with the President's budget.
The implications of such a propaganda campaign are very disturbing.
I have, therefore, asked the General Accounting Office to investigate the circumstances surrounding the production and distribution of these "kits," including such questions as whether they were prepared and distributed at taxpayer expense, who authorized their production, and whether such a propaganda campaign violates the law, in particular the anti-lobbying statute.
I ask that the text of my letter to the Comptroller General be included in the RECORD at this point, along with excerpts from the kits and the materials pertaining to this propaganda campaign which my office has obtained.
There being no objection, the text of the letter, excerpts and material were ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
APRIL 9, 1973.
Hon. ELMER B. STAATS,
Comptroller General of the United States,
General Accounting Office,
Washington, D.C.
DEAR Mr. STAATS: Recent press reports in the Washington Post have revealed that the Administration has undertaken a major propaganda campaign in an effort to launch an attack on the Congress over the issue of Federal spending.
Those press reports reveal that "to make sure voters get the same message, Federal writers have been given a detailed set of guidelines by the White House, telling them where, when and how to warn taxpayers of the dangers to their pocketbooks if Congress tampers with the President's budget."
As principal weapons in this propaganda campaign, the Administration has put together and distributed kits entitled "The Battle of the Budget, 1973."
These kits, which have been circulated to top agency officials, tell government specialists how to write speeches warning of tax increases and give lists of 15 Federal programs to be attacked. They also contain anti-Congress speech material and examples of horror stories which spotlight deficiencies in programs the President wants to terminate.
In addition to obtaining a partial copy of the kit, my office has also obtained excerpts from the instructions the Department of Commerce apparently sent to its district office officials along with the kit. These instructions request that district office officials "immediately identify a minimum of two or more major forums for organizational meetings between April 6-23 at which a selected senior departmental spokesman may deliver a basic business-oriented speech on the 'Battle of the Budget.'"
In addition, these instructions, apparently sent out by H. Phillip Hubbard, Acting Director of Field Operations at the Department of Commerce, request that the district office officials "make arrangements to deliver such a speech yourself before a minimum of four additional groups during the same period (April 6-23) as well as handling on your own any of the major forums for which a departmental spokesman is not available."
I am concerned about the implications of such a propaganda campaign, apparently directed by the White House, and, therefore, I am requesting that your office undertake an investigation of it, with particular attention to answering the following questions:
1. Who authorized the production of these "kits"?
2. Were these kits prepared and produced at taxpayers' expense?
3. How widely have these kits been distributed both inside and outside the government?
4. What kind of instructions accompanied these kits when they were circulated?
5. What Federal funds, if any, have been used to finance this propaganda campaign? From what budget authority did those funds come?
6. Does a propaganda campaign of this nature, if undertaken at government expense, violate the law? In particular, is the anti-lobbying statute, U.S.C. 18, 645, 62, Stat. 792, applicable to this situation? If it is, how is it applicable, what violations have occurred?
I am enclosing copies of the material my office has obtained concerning this propaganda effort by the Administration. I would appreciate receiving a preliminary report on this matter by the close of business April 30 and an estimate of the length of time a full investigation of this matter will require.
Thank you for your cooperation.
With best wishes, I am,
Sincerely,
EDMUND S. MUSKIE.
[From the Washington Post, Apr. 4, 1973]
PR MEN GIRD FOR "BATTLE OF BUDGET"
(By Mike Causey)
The Nixon administration is mobilizing the bureaucracy's extensive, and expensive, public relations apparatus for an attack on the "spendthrift" Democratic-controlled Congress.
To make sure voters get the same message, federal writers have been given a detailed set of guidelines by the White House, telling them where, when and how to warn taxpayers of the dangers to their pocketbooks if Congress tampers with the President's budget.
The guidelines, obtained by this column, tell government specialists how to write speeches warning of tax increases, and give lists of 15 federal programs to be hit, anti-Congressional "one liners" to be used by officials on the banquet circuit, and examples of "horror stories" to be used in spotlighting federal programs Mr. Nixon wants to end.
The idea is to rally public pressure against Congress not to tamper with the budget. The approach is not new. It was used by the Kennedy administration to push anti-poverty programs and civil rights, and by the Johnson administration to build support for our presence in Vietnam. But the scope of the latest operation, and its tight control from the White House, may be unprecedented, and is definitely attack-oriented.
Kits, called "The Battle of the Budget, 1973," were distributed yesterday morning to top agency officials and public relations aides. The kit includes detailed instructions as to how future government press releases, and speeches, are to be written, listing:
"Major Themes," "Key Fact," "Sample Speech Material," "One-Liners," "Sample Speech," and "Anecdotes" that lampoon unsuccessful federal programs, members of Congress and anti- administration newspapers.
Examples of how "Horror Stories Might Be Used" in speech material and "canned" editorials written for newspapers and television stations include the following:
"Each day the Congress persists in its efforts to foist on the American public a gaggle of runaway spending schemes and boondoggling programs which fuel inflation and threaten higher taxes.
"The pat response by the President's critics is that the President is hurting the poor, not responding to the people and has his priorities mixed up."
It then lists the programs Mr. Nixon has "targeted for cutbacks," and the "horror stories" to be used to illustrate they have been a waste of time and taxpayers' money. They include the Concentrated Employment Program in East Harlem that had "the commendable goal of 1,400 enrollees" in a job training, placement system.
"Only 616 persons were actually enrolled," the guideline sheet says, "while 170 of those dropped out. Instead of the hoped-for job placements of 920, the magic figure for the number of persons placed in jobs was 6. That is to say, thousands of dollars were spent for a program whose final results were a one out of 100 ratio of job placement."
In a section called "Support for the President's Stand," speech-writers are told to draw on Mr. Nixon's earlier anti-spending statements – which are attached – and to use this followup:
"As President Nixon has said, 'The way to hold the line on taxes is to hold the line on federal spending.'" The suggested followup in a speech is "It is as simple as that."
The speech-writers are then given this suggestion for phrases their bosses must use in upcoming speech-making tours. They should tell taxpayer groups:
"But holding that line means doing away with some of the favorite sacred cows that the Congress has funded and refunded again and again for decades." The sample speech continues:
"As far as the public is concerned, these sacred cows stopped giving milk years ago. But each special program has a small but determined band of special beneficiaries – people who have been receiving something for nothing; people who have been getting a free ride at the taxpayer's expense. These free loaders are not going to be evicted without a fight."
[From the Washington Post, Apr. 9, 1973]
"FAR-OUT 15" SKIRMISH NOW A BATTLE
(By Mike Causey)
While the administration steps up attacks on congressional budget-busters – using the bureaucracy as the battering ram – key Democrats are studying a little-used federal law that provides fines and jail terms for civil servants who get caught in the lobbying business.
Under orders from the White House, federal agencies have been told to whip up public opposition to the so-called Far Out Fifteen. They are legislative proposals Mr. Nixon says would ruin his budget and force unwanted tax increases. Many of the programs under attack are pet projects of powerful Senate and House Democrats eyeing the 1974 congressional elections.
The result of the executive vs. legislative branch brawl, now being fought with press releases and speeches, could be that some career civil servants will find themselves caught in a legal meat grinder that could cost them their jobs. It could also bottle up agency money packages in a revenge-seeking Congress.
The law in question, one of the most frequently bent on the books, is the antilobbying statute, known in the trade as U.S.C. 18, 645, 62 Stat. 792. It reads:
"No part of the money appropriated by any enactment of Congress shall, in the absence of express authorization by Congress, be used directly or indirectly to pay for any personal service, advertisement, telegram, telephone, letter, printed or written matter, or designed to influence in any manner a member of Congress to favor, or oppose, by vote or otherwise, any legislation or appropriation by Congress ... but this shall not prevent officers or employees of the U.S. ... on the request of any member or to Congress, through the proper official channels, requests for legislation or appropriations which they deem necessary for the efficient conduct of the public business."
Like most laws, the above can, and probably does, mean lots of things.
One reading would indicate that civil servants who get involved – as speech writers, secretaries or liaison – in lobbying against a congressional project would be in violation of the law. If that is true, the law has been violated frequently by other administrations.
If, however, you take the approach that federal workers report directly to the President, it could be argued that they should do what he says, even if it means butting beads with Congress.
Some congressmen are considering a test of the law. The outcome could be a clear mandate for the President, any President, to use the bureaucracy as he sees fit, or to put it more directly under control of the Congress. Unfortunately for the "test case" federal worker caught in the middle, it could mean loss of a job, a $500 fine and a year's room and board at some federal penitentiary.
Right to Strike Hearings: The first ever on the controversial proposal to give postal employees the right-to-strike open today before Rep. Charles H. Wilson's (D-Calif.) Postal Facilities subcommittee, Postmaster General E. T. Klassen is lead-off witness.
In addition to the right to strike, postal unions are seeking the right to negotiate the union shop, which would require rank-and-file employees to join organizations, or at least pay dues to them.
Klassen has said before that he would not oppose the right to strike, provided postal unions stop asking Congress to legislate on their working conditions and instead stick to the bargaining table.
National Right to Work Committee, which opposes compulsory unionism, will also testify this week as will heads of major postal unions.
Music Soothes The Savage Scientists: Department of Transportation has installed piped-in music at its research facility next door to the CIA in McLean. Reaction to the music from workers is mixed. But in these times of belt-tightening at DOT, some wonder about the cost of the sound of music.
Job Hunters: The White House Fellows group is looking for a secretary, up to Grade 7. Call 382-4661 . National Capital Housing Authority wants an attorney (D.C. bar) with landlord-tenant experience. Call 382-8025.
Agency for International Development's Rosslyn's office has openings for GS 7-9 and 11 contract specialists. Call 557-0187.
[From the Washington Post, Apr. 8, 1973]
WHITE HOUSE GIRDS FOR BUDGET BATTLE
(By David S. Broder)
"Mr. Nixon's men are organizing it with the same thoroughness – and many of the same techniques – they used in the last election campaign."
Last Wednesday afternoon, the weekly meeting of the departmental information officers of the Nixon administration was shifted from its regular location in the Executive Office Building to the Theodore Roosevelt Room of the White House.
The occasion was something of a celebration. Ken W. Clawson, the deputy director of communications for the executive branch and organizer of the session, passed out cufflinks with the presidential seal to everyone present.
Such mementoes have been traditional at the White House for years, celebrating the end of wars, the resolution of missile crises, or the passage of major pieces of legislation.
As far as anyone could remember, however, this was the first time that the agency publicity men, the top echelon of the army of government flacks, were so well rewarded for their part in sustaining a presidential veto.
"One down," said Clawson referring to the previous day's Senate vote upholding Mr. Nixon's veto of the vocational rehabilitation act. "One down and 14 to go."
Facing at least 15 possible veto showdowns with Congress, the White House has mobilized all the resources of the executive branch for the 1973 battle of the budget. In this struggle, mobilizing public opinion on the President's side of the debate is regarded as one of the most vital battlegrounds.
Mr. Nixon's men are organizing it with the same thoroughness – and many of the same techniques – they used in the last election campaign. In time, the "selling of the budget" may make as striking a chapter in the public relations textbooks as "the selling of the President."
Clawson, a former Washington Post reporter who is expected to succeed the departing Herbert G. Klein as the administration's information director, is the coordinator of the budget campaign.
As in the last campaign, Mr. Nixon himself is being used sparingly for crucial roles in the publicity drive. The President provides the basic themes and the overall message and delivers – in occasional radio and television talks to the public and in messages to Congress – the key statements in the budget battle.
But the day-to-day work of keeping the message before the public is being done by Cabinet officers and agency heads, just as those men or their predecessors served as "surrogate candidates" for the President last fall.
Clawson, who coordinated the "surrogates" in the 1972 campaign, is marshaling them with similar efficiency and an eye for detail in this new campaign.
In an interview last week, he insisted that each Cabinet member is setting his own speech schedule and picking his own topics, with the White House merely offering background material on budget issues and providing suggestions on ways to reach as wide an audience as possible in the city he chooses to visit.
But participants in Clawson's weekly meetings depict the White House role as central in the whole publicity drive.
Weeks ago, they say, Clawson announced to the agency information chiefs that the President wanted his hold-the-line budget drive given top priority in every possible forum. Applying this doctrine, Clawson ordered a quota of one "economy" speech per week for every presidential appointee in the department or agency.
Last week, the quota was tripled, with the flacks told they would be responsible for producing three appearances a week by each political appointee.
Target areas were identified – mainly small to medium-sized cities with conservative Democratic or liberal Republican congressmen. Agency public relations men were told to coordinate their principals' speaking plans with John Guthrie, an aide to presidential assistant H. R. (Bob) Haldeman, in order to avoid overlapping appearances and to assure maximum coverage.
In recent weeks, Clawson has added other assignments to the expanding drive:
Each department or agency was told to deliver two signed editorial page-style commentaries on the budget battle by its officials, which Clawson is attempting to place in newspapers around the country.
Each agency publicity man was directed to produce several ideas on budget stories for trade and business publications.
Each department with a radio facility was told to produce recorded budget messages for radio stations to tape for their own use.
A list of radio talk shows across the country was distributed and the publicity men were urged to line up interviews for their bosses – via long-distance.
The White House is also playing a leading role in shaping the contents of the message. In addition to distributing the President's own economy statements and legislative veto messages to a list of some 1,500 editors, editorial writers and broadcasting executives, Clawson's office prepared a bulky "battle of the budget" kit as a guide to agency speechwriters.
A copy of the document, obtained by Washington Post reporter Mike Causey, lists "horror stories" and "program failures" that can be used to justify presidential budget cuts; letters to the White House; editorials and polls supporting Mr. Nixon's stand; and "one-liners" and anecdotes directed against the congressional "budget-busters."
Material from the White House speech kit has been turning up regularly in the texts of Secretary of Commerce Frederick B. Dent, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development James T. Lynn and others. For example, when presidential counselor Anne Armstrong told a San Antonio audience that "holding the line means putting some sacred cows out to pasture” – she was quoting a Clawson one-liner.
When Dent told the Wholesale Grocers Association about the anti-poverty agency's employment program in East Harlem, he was citing one of the Clawson-certified "horror stories."
When Lynn told audiences in Washington, Indianapolis, Charleston, W. Va., Richmond, and Anderson. S.C., that the alternative to budget-cutting would be a 15 per cent tax raise, he was parroting one of Clawson's recommended "major themes."
The White House has also encouraged the advertising of similar themes by private-citizen allies of the President. Last Tuesday, The Washington Post carried the first full page ad in a planned national campaign by a newly formed group called Citizens for Control of Federal Spending.
The chairman of the organization is David Packard, former deputy Secretary of Defense and head of the 1972 Nixon campaign in California. Its "legislative consultant" is Bryce N. Harlow, counselor to the President in the first Nixon administration and formerly top White House lobbyist. The list of other officers and members is studded with social friends of the President and former members of his administration.
The new organization has rented space on the same floor of a Washington office building with the local office of J. Walter Thompson, the advertising agency that contributed Haldeman and so many others to the White House staff, but its own agency is Wagner and Baroody, a firm whose principals have worked for Mr. Nixon and the Republican National Committee.
When H. Lee Choate, the retired Air Force officer who is listed as executive director of the Citizens for Control of Federal Spending, was asked if the group had any ties to the White House, he said, "No."
"They're aware of our existence, of course," he added, "because our three leaders (Packard and ex-Reps. John W. Byrnes of Wisconsin and James Roosevelt of California) visited the President and told him what they were prepared to do. He was very grateful and encouraged them to go on."
Clawson, denying any more role in the creation of the citizens committee than he acknowledged in the orchestration of the administration's own publicity campaign expressed optimism about the way the battle of the budget is going.
"I think we're winning it in the country," he said, citing a series of public opinion surveys, including the latest Gallup Poll. That poll reports that by majorities ranging from 54 per cent to 65 per cent, voters believe that federal taxes are too high, that it is very important to balance the budget and that it is more important to hold down spending and taxes than to increase spending for social programs.
"We know the country is with us," Clawson said, "but the people who are hit by the budget cuts are the organized special interest groups – like the professional poverty workers – who are just lobbying the hell out of Capitol Hill."
"The question is whether congressmen will respond to their constituency back home or to the organized pressure groups," he said.
So far, the President is winning the battle both in the country and on Capitol Hill, where his first veto was sustained and the Senate has passed a spending ceiling even lower than the one Mr. Nixon recommended.
The way things are going, Clawson may have to request a supplemental appropriation for more presidential jewelry for his flacks.
EXCERPTS FROM "BATTLE OF THE BUDGET, 1973"
THE FAR-OUT 15
John D. Ehrlichman, Assistant to the President, March 9, 1973: "A $9 billion herd of Trojan horses that are thundering our way from out of the Congress, brightly painted and outfitted with very attractive accessories .
"This is a $9 billion dagger at the pocketbook of the American taxpayer ..."
The Congress presently has on its calendar 15 pieces of legislation which would raise the taxes of the American people. Some of these budget-busting bills have passed and the others may be passed in the near future. Most, perhaps all, will be vetoed.
These 15 bills would raise President Nixon's budget by $9 billion. And they would require a 4% surcharge on individual income taxes in order to pay for them.
What follows is a close examination of these bills:
The Far-Out Fifteen:
Airport Grant Extension.
Anti-Hijacking.
Economic Development Administration.
Emergency Farm Loans.
Flood Control.
Health Maintenance Organizations.
Older Americans Legislation.
REA.
REAP.
Rural Water and Sewer Grants.
Veterans Legislative Package.
Vocational Rehabilitation Legislation.
FLOOD CONTROL
If anything warms Congressional hearts more than fund-raising dinners, it is dams.
Big dams, little dams, earth dams, concrete dams – they all mean flood control, recreation, conservation, reclamation. And more than that, they mean vote-getting pork from the Federal barrel.
It is no wonder then that one of the first bills passed in the new Congress authorized $593 million for 34 such water projects. Passed by the Senate, it is now in House Committee where it certainly won't die from lack of loving care.
PRESIDENT NIXON'S NEW BUDGET
No matter that that bill ties the President's hands for a year in trying to do anything about upgrading the standards on which Federal approval of such projects is based.
No matter that President Nixon had already proposed a much more reasonable flood control program authorizing $400 million for ten projects that had passed all the environmental and economic tests.
It is all well and good to want to prevent flooding and create scenic lakes to admire and ski upon, but some concern has to be shown for overall Federal fiscal integrity and some concern must be shown for whether these projects are going to pay a return in benefits on the Federal investment.
The time has come when a hard, careful choice must be made between popularity and necessity, when some kind of balance must be struck between Christmas spending and New Year's morning after.
No less than fiscal responsibility and sound management of the Nation's business is at stake in the flood control dispute between the Congress and the President.
KEY FACTS ABOUT THE BUDGET FIGHT
I. The Past: An Era of Bigger and Bigger Government:
Governments at all levels – Federal, State and local – now take 32 percent of the Nation's income; in the mid-50s, they took only 25 percent.
The Federal Government alone has nearly doubled its burden on taxpayers since 1950, now taking over 20 percent of all personal income.
Growth of Federal spending was especially pronounced under the last years of LBJ, growing at an average annual rate of 17 percent between 1965 and 1968: In 1963, there were only 160 individual grant programs, but now there are over 1,000.
A huge momentum is now built into the growth of Government. Nearly 75 percent of the FY 74 budget is for virtually "uncontrollable" items
At the present rate of growth, the budget of the Federal Government will be over $1 trillion – the size of our entire economy today – by the 1990's.
MAJOR THEMES
President Nixon's new budget moves us firmly toward something that Americans have not achieved in nearly 20 years: prosperity without war and without inflation.
The key to the President's budget is its tight lid on spending.
He is cutting back on programs that don't work in order to concentrate our efforts on those that do.
He is reforming other programs so that through revenue sharing, people will have a greater control over their own lives.
When big spenders in Congress bust open the budget, they impose higher taxes or more inflation upon the American public.
The increase in our tax bills could be as much as 15%.
This is a battle between the public interest and the special interest. Congress always hears from the special interests. Now is the time for the average taxpayers to let them know how you feel about higher taxes and more inflation: write now to your Senators and Congressman to tell him where you stand.