Word: decontrol
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...rivalry between Jimmy Carter and Edward Kennedy broke out again last week in a flurry of sharp words over the President's decontrol of oil prices and his proposed windfall profits tax. The Massachusetts Senator opposed the first decision and ridiculed the second. Carter struck back by calling Kennedy's charges "just a lot of baloney. " TIME Washington Bureau Chief Robert Ajemian, who has closely followed the touchy relationship between the country's top two Democrats, reports on the combat...
...charges Ted Kennedy had made only a few hours earlier in New York City. Powell had just called Kennedy's office himself to check the exact words. Yes, the press secretary told the President, Kennedy had said the oil lobby intimidated Carter into "throwing in the towel" on decontrol without even "entering the ring." Yes, Kennedy had accused Carter of submitting a token windfall profits tax that was no more than a "transparent fig leaf over vast new corporate profits...
...flare-up really began a month ago, when Carter first decided to decontrol oil prices. Kennedy for his part had urged the Administration not to abandon the threat of continued controls until a windfall tax was assured. But Carter had tried that approach last year and been clobbered by the Congress. This time the President figured to decontrol first and throw the responsibility for the tax onto Congress...
...course, meant an increase in gasoline and heating-oil prices, as well as in the overall rate of inflation. It also meant huge new profits for the oil companies. To counteract that, Carter proposed a profits tax that would leave the companies 29? out of every dollar gained from decontrol; he urged that the profits be spent on additional exploration and production. Kennedy angrily challenged the figure, asserting the oil companies would end up with far more. By week's end it was unclear whose figures were more accurate. But the Kennedy intervention emboldened House Speaker...
...they are perfect targets for a bit of demagoguery because much of the public dislikes them too. Carter's verbal overkill is also intended to deflect public fury from the White House when gasoline prices, which are already rising sharply, go up even more as a result of decontrol...