Plenary Session Transcripts

Governors Attending:

Guests:

Discussion Subjects:

Intergovernmental relations; care of the aged and chronically ill; address of VP Richard Nixon; highway problems and motor vehicle taxation; and economic development

Points of Interest:

Governors again discussed stopping grants-in-aid in favor of relinquishment by the federal government of excise taxes to the states.  One argument offered was that federal financial aid should be unconditional based on the fact that it was citizens of the states who paid federal taxes.

Meyer Kestnbaum discussed the Commission on Intergovernmental Relations that he now headed, which had been established largely at the Governors' urging, and the Commission's effort to study functional fields in which grants-in-aid were important.  He asked for the Governors' help in determining where grants-in-aid might be eliminated.

In his address to the Governors, Vice President Nixon talked about the pending proposal for $50 billion in highway aid to the states.

Concern was expressed by the Governors as to how sufficient funding would be available if the federal government ceded gasoline tax to the states.  Among the options they talked about were the Council of State Government's (CSG) recommendations that: states increase motor fuel taxes; consideration be given to enacting a tax based on gross weight carried and miles traveled; and in the alternative, consideration be given to increasing registration fees or imposing special weight taxes on motor carriers to ensure that those carriers paid their proportionate share of the highway tax burden.

Charles Conlon of the National Association of Tax Administrators proposed adjusting state tax relationships with respect to heavy trucks, under which all applicable taxes would be apportioned among states on the basis of carrier reports of mileage and gas consumption per state.

Memorable Quotes:

Secretary Oveta Hobby of HEW said: "The average cost in the hospital, in 1952, per patient per day...was $18.63. This is almost like room and board here in a hospital. In hospitals for the chronically ill, the figure was something like $6.63 a day, so I do not need to point out the obvious. With more and more of our people becoming chronically ill, and with hospital...and...medical costs rising, it is imperative that we find some device to build hospitals for the chronically ill..."

Governor John Lodge of Connecticut said: "...as our population is getting older, and people are feeling healthier longer, we may some day be up against a very difficult and dangerous sociological problem...if we were to enter a period of less precarious peace, and the federal government were to spend [billions less] on defense...and we had to cut down, and weren't able to convert sufficiently in our factories, and we could produce all that we could consume...and perhaps would go on a 20- to 25-hour week, there would then be great pressure...to retire people at a younger age..."

Governor G. Mennen Williams of Michigan had this to say about the automobile industry: "It has been estimated that $1.00 in every $7.00 in our [national] business is in the automobile industry...I don't think anyone here is going to contend that the automobile industry hasn't had ingenuity, hasn't had the brains and hasn't had the energy to do a tremendous job."

Selected Resolutions Adopted:
(1) Memorializing Congress to enact legislation empowering the states to levy taxes against federal contractors, currently viewed as federal purchasing agents immunized from state taxation; (2) requesting CSG and other interstate associations in the field of highway programs to study and report on the status of highway programs, soliciting ideas from Governors accordingly, and calling Governors together with federal officials to discuss the subject if action was found to be necessary and desirable; (3) requesting that the association's Executive Committee or a special committee appointed by it review methods that might accomplish a working agreement among states to provide a cooperative method of allocating taxation of heavy commercial vehicles traveling interstate, and report on those methods, in order to enable states to consider those methods in their 1955 legislative sessions; (4) urging state safety coordinators to conduct vigorous highway safety campaigns; (5) endorsing regulatory legislation and education campaigns to foster care, cleanliness, and concern for the appearance of American parks, roads, roadsides, and all such public places; and (6) requesting CSG to study and report at the next annual meeting on planning of adequate care, treatment, and rehabilitation facilities to cope with needs of the aged and chronically ill.