Oral history transcript, Frank M. Wozencraft, interview 9 (IX), 2/25/1969, by T.H. Baker

Title:

Oral history transcript, Frank M. Wozencraft, interview 9 (IX), 2/25/1969, by T.H. Baker

Number of Pages:

33

Description:

the relationships between the federal government, state and local governments, and private enterprise; the changing role of states and the federal government in interstate compacts; federal participation in interstate compacts; air and water pollution; LBJ's environmental legislation; Office of Legal Counsel's (OLC) work examining legislation drafted by Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) to decide what the executive branch position should be on it; OLC's assignment to review LBJ's legislative program before the White House released it; a Bureau of the Budget meeting in which several departments expressed their displeasure with HEW's proposed legislation; OLC's suggestion of regional councils to address the air pollution program; veto power under the proposed legislation; failure of that legislation to pass and a return to interstate compacts; the federal government's role in interstate compacts; Bureau of the Budget's Dean Coston's work; the relationship between federal income tax and state/local tax; the block grant as a way for states to gain access to federal funds; law enforcement as a local, not federal, government responsibility; the creation of the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA); Congress' attention to LEAA appointments in 1968; the stipulation that only state governments could request or receive funds; the future of the block grant; federal versus local supervision of the spending of federal funds; complications in the use of federal funds for local causes, such as with the Hatch Act and the Office of Economic Opportunity's (OEO) community action agency; accountability in the spending of federal funds; OEO problems; the Neighborhood Legal Services program; Head Start; overlap and confusion between county, city and state government; the Council on Intergovernmental Relations; the need for effective federal executive boards to coordinate federal activities in a given city; involving the private sector in local government and obstacles to that goal; the National Alliance of Businessmen (NAB) and compensation of its members; how OLC helped NAB and a housing commission avoid a conflict-of-interest pay problem; subsidizing new businesses in low-income areas or offering tax incentives to business owners to involve the poor in the free enterprise and legal systems.

Contributor:

Wozencraft, Frank M.

Collection:

LBJ Library Oral Histories

Collection Description:

Go to List of Holdings

Series:

Transcripts of LBJ Library Oral Histories

See Also:

See all online interviews with Frank M. Wozencraft

Relation:

Go to Interviewee bio page

Rights:

Possibly copyright restricted: see deed at end of transcript for details