- 8 to guide their funds allocation; the other committees could formulate their programs and discharge their responsibilities within a coherent understanding of national objectives. THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH could satisfy its national growth policy responsibilities. THE STAVIS could participate in the national growth and development process without sacrifice of sovereignty or self-determination. THE PRIVATE SECTOR could benefit from an environment which would support its growth and geographic distribution on a basis consistent with a perceived and directed long-term national interest. Thank you. NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT BANK GROWTH POLICY SUPPORT FINANCING Resource, Extraction and Development (Coal, Shale, Hydro, Nuclear Energy and Agri-business) NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT BANK PUBLIC DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION RE-FINANCING Public Development Corporation finance planning and land acquisition through site selection and public approval period. National Development Bank Commit to re-finance when program approved by all necessary jurisdictions. Reduces total borrowing necessary for Public Development Corporations and expands development opportunity beyond own credit limitations. Reduces amount and cost of tax exempt debt issued. Somewhat in contrast to your letter of March 4, it has been my observation that there are already in the federal government--in the agencies, on the staffs of Senate and House committees, including the staffs of Senators and Congressmen, in the Budget Bureau, in the White House--any number of extremely bright and well-educated men and women who have read the works of the panelists who come to such symposia and who have thought about how their general and hortatory ideas can be applied to concrete government operations. This was certainly my experience when Lyndon Johnson set up his own Task Forces shortly after he became President-I sought to persuade Eric Goldman, who was in charge of these that we outsiders knew much less than people in the government as to what was feasible, and the notion that we had wonderful bright ideas which people in the government had not already had was on the whole a mistake. My subsequent service on the Task Force of Education chaired first by John Gardner and then by Francis Keppel, only bore out this belief; the real service of the Task Force was to act as leverage for people like William Cannon in the Budget Bureau, rather than to present "new" ideas. I have served on Task Forces outside the government, including one of Nelson Rockefeller's panels (also on education) well before he became Governor of New York State, and on the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education. I think these serve a purpose when they can maintain close touch with people in state and federal governmer but only when they do that, Otherwise, what they say is much too abstract. I am sorry to inject this note of skepticism into a reasonable and fair-minded reques on your part. But I do feel that the government can do little that is creative in helping set national goals or get people organized to do so. The effort plays into the hands of the general belief--Right, Left, and Center--that those bureaucrats" i Washington do not really know anything! You yourself, as a scientist and former astronaut, know a good deal more than many of the people who would give advice, One other experience I have had was very sobering, which was to serve on the Commissi on National Goals of the National Planning Association until pressure of time forced me to resign. We came to the conclusion that the cost of implementing what were generally agreed upon national goals far exceeded any likely increase in the national income--this was in the sanguine 1960's. Again, the work of the National Planning Association is fully available to people in the Congress and in the agencies. I am sorry I cannot be more helpful, unless it is helpful, as I hope it is, to say that I have more confidence in people now in the government than in people like mysel invited in for short-term bursts of wisdom. With good wishes, Sincerely, DR/mf David Riesman. |