NEWS CONFERENCE 471

employed on a rodent control program. The newspaper report in-
dicated that only 327 jobs were provided by private industry. And
it further implied that the whole thrust of the program was of a stop
gap nature.

The thing that concerns me most about this pessimistic evaluation
is that this program was mounted at considerable expense to the State
and followed through with energy and dedication on the part of the
public and private officials who were involved in it. The State ap-
propriated |480, 000 from the emergency fund, or committed that
amount, to sustain this program. The Board of Estimates of Baltimore
City contributed money. The Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan
Baltimore provided office space for Mr. Lee and set up an organized
job recruiting program among industry.

In the same report Mr. Lee has made further recommendations for
placing the program on a continuing basis, and I'm having these ex-
amined now for implementation. I can see no reason for the pessimism
and the disparagement of the effort expressed in the news article.

[The Governor then read in full his Statement on Capital Punish-
ment, printed above. —Ed. ]

Lastly, I would like to announce, in response to questions I've re-
ceived from previous press conferences, the rate of growth of budget-
ary quests this year. I have a letter from the Director of the Budget
which reads as follows:

In response to your inquiry relative to the 1969 budget requests,
compared to the previous year's requests, an examination of the
1969 requests for those agencies received to date as of October 5
indicates that they are 29. 8 percent higher than the 1968 appro-
priations. However, the 1968 requests for the same agencies show
that they were 54. 1 percent higher than the 1967 appropriations.

So you see there has been a decrease of 20 percent between this year
and last year.

Q. Governor, are you saying that the budget requests for the next
fiscal year will not require another tax increase?

A. Well, I think we've got to understand one thing. First of all I'm
sure that you do understand that the budget requests and the budget
are two different matters. Budget requests are always far in excess of
the actual recommended executive budget. So budget requests would
have no ascertainable relationship to the final budget as presented
by the executive.