NEWS CONFERENCE 93

Also deeply appreciated by me are the efforts of Mr. Thomas M.
Kerrigan and Mr. Gerald Menapace, who served as my personal ob-
servers in these negotiations, as well as those of Mr. Walter Maggiolo,
Mr. Daniel Fitzpatrick and Mr. Eugene Erlich, the Federal mediators
who have participated in over 70 sessions since the beginning of the
dispute.

NEWS CONFERENCE
March 15, 1967

Q. Governor, it looks like the Ways and Means Committee has
cleared all the amendments to the tax bill. How do you feel about it?

A. Well I'm going to reach that, Eddie. If I may just make a brief
statement about two things that are on my mind, I will get to your
question very quickly. First of all, I think I'm obligated to clear up a
misconception that happened yesterday by reason of a report in the
Baltimore afternoon newspapers to the effect that Dr. Cooper had
indicated that I had, or someone in my administration had, deliber-
ately, I use the word deliberately, underestimated revenues in order to
provide for a surplus in the budget in the revenues at the end of the
year. There's utterly no intention to provide any such surplus. I want
to point out a few things to you. First of all the revenue estimates
that came to the Hughes commission came there through the Comp-
troller's office. I have no control over what those estimates were.
Secondly, Dr. Cooper himself, and I have been in touch with him to-
day, disclaims having made any such statement. Thirdly, Dr. Samuel
Chase, who was one of the consultants to the Hughes commission
when it was studying the tax program, stated very emphatically that
he thought that these estimates were too ambitious and he had pro-
jected revenue estimates at 7 or 8 million dollars under the ones that
we used. Now, as I have pointed out, it becomes completely obvious
that in operating a business that expends over a billion dollars a year
there would have to be a conservative approach in revenue estimating.
I think we've gone beyond the conservative, I think we've gotten
pretty liberal in this one. I'm a little frightened about whether
we may run out of money next year based on these estimates and
based on Dr. Chase's estimates. But I think that you have got to
bear in mind that a 12 million dollar surplus, even if it should
exist, is only 1. 2 percent of the total budget. And I know of no
business in this country that operates its fiscal affairs within such