404 ADDRESSES AND STATE PAPERS

A. No, I don't think that. I think we loaded about as heavily as we
could in the fiscal reform program. And I want to point this out, I
am 100 percent delighted that those who advocated the use of the sales
tax instead of the graduated income tax were not successful, because

the sales tax growth has diminished from 10 percent to roughly 5 per-
cent. In other words, we would have been in serious trouble with our
revenues had we been relying on a. sales tax to produce the amount
of money that was distributed to the subdivisions and used to assist
State programming.

Q. Governor, the first group of State departments to submit its bud-
get request is asking an average increase of 36 percent. Does this to
you seem to foreshadow some new revenue sources?

A. No, I don't think so, because there are only about 10 percent of
the State agencies that have their budget requests in at this period
and that is not a sufficient number upon which to base a judgment.
Also, we found historically in the budget-making process that the
requests are fairly well in advance of any logical increase in the actual
budget as it comes into being. We are having some problems with cer-
tain agencies who are caught up in the need to finance a program like
Medicaid. The Health Department budget will have to go up ap-
preciably, and this is going to probably pull up some of the percent-
ages of increase. But I do think that most State agencies that aren't
caught in the need to actually finance a mandatory Federal program
are going to hold their budgets down as hard as they can.

Q. Did you feel, Governor, that the Comptroller's office is crippling
your administration?

A. No, I don't feel that. I don't think they are capable of crippling
my administration.

Q. Governor, taking into account that these figures are almost 15
percent ahead of comparable requests of last year, can you account
for that?

A. I'm not sure which agencies have reported yet, because, as I in-
dicated, I just got back in town late last night, and I would want to
see which ones are included in the 10 percent that have reported. I
emphasize that only 10 percent are in. I'm not sure whether the Health
Department is in that group. If it is, it would certainly account for
part of the increase. But I would like to look over the figures and
the agencies involved and see the reasons for their requests before I
would venture an opinion as to why the figures are running 36 per-
cent at this time.