Word: laird
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That, however, did not inhibit the combative Victor Gold, Agnew's former press secretary and still a close associate. Gold put the blame for the stories squarely on Alexander Haig and Melvin Laird, Nixon's two top aides, who he said were following a familiar White House pattern in trying to undermine the Vice President as Nixon's most likely successor in 1976. Said Gold: "First we had Haldeman and Ehrlichman; now we have Haig and Laird; next we'll have Sonny and Cher...
...outlined by Laird, the increase would take the form of an income tax surcharge of approximately 10%. But instead of going to finance new spending programs or other Government business, he said, the $18 billion or so that would be raised if the measure became law in 1974 would in effect be held in escrow, then refunded dollar for dollar to individuals and corporations at some later time when the economy needed a spending boost. A second idea under study is to change the investment tax credit−which currently allows businessmen to write off 7% of their expenses...
...seemed more astounded by the President's latest turnabout than his chief economic adviser, Treasury Secretary George Shultz, who happened to be attending an international trade meeting in Tokyo. Normally granite calm in any circumstance, Shultz put on a show of high pique from across the Pacific. Laird, said Shultz, "can keep his cotton-pickin' hands off economic policy." The tax plans described by the domestic-affairs chief were "out of tune with everything that had been discussed" before Shultz left on his trip. Moreover, said the Treasury Secretary, "Laird always sounds off about economic policy when...
...eerily reminiscent of an episode involving many of the President's same advisers last spring, when Shultz was attending an international bankers meeting in Paris. Just before leaving, he had drafted what he thought would be a swift transition from the collapsing Phase III to Phase IV. Suddenly Laird, then newly appointed, entered the scene, remarking for the first time in public that tighter controls were under consideration. The idea of a temporary freeze was especially favored by former Treasury Secretary John Connally−who last week just happened to hold his first face-to-face meeting with Nixon...
...serious the President is about pushing his new tax schemes is quite another matter. In his rather rambling and contradictory statement, Laird admitted that the currently hostile temper of Congress and the pressure of its other business ruled out any likelihood that the program would be enacted this session. Laird seemed willing to wait. The ideas were being considered, he said, in an Administration move toward "discussing ideas in the open." Even Shultz's outburst, he said later, was part of a new give-and-take. "This is the kind of thing I am trying to encourage...