on matters that affect their different departments in trying to come to a conclusion. These are the intimate give and take between a President, his members of the Cabinet, and his advisers.

NOT MUCH HAPPENS AT CABINET MEETINGS

My feeling is that this would be more meaningful to the members of the Cabinet than a Cabinet meeting itself. Because when all is said and done, the average Cabinet meeting is a joke. Not much happens. I mean not much happens around there. These perfunctory decisions basically are not made there, if we are going to be frank with one another and stop kidding ourselves. But if you have a problem involving Labor and HEW and HUD and they sit down with this group of men who are the President's advisers to try to get a determination between them, now this is done in the intimacy of the White House and there will be more give and take, and I think the Presidency can operate a lot smoother.

HOUSE ACTION AWAITED

May I say this? It becomes very obvious that if the House rejects it, it is out. Then you and I have the function in the committee to try to get a piece of legislation that I would hope could achieve as much as the Ash Commission tried to achieve in this reorganization plan.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. I would hope that if this does happen, and I cannot assure the gentlemen whether it will happen or not-I do not know the will of the House; it will be expressed, I believe, on the following Wednesday-if it does, I would ask him to look very carefully at the legislation that I have introduced along with the chairman of my subcommittee, and I would hope that the argument that this is parallel to the Security Council would not bear undue weight with the Senators, because the National Security Council is dealing with classified matters of great international importance. I would be inclined to say from my own experience that a commission composed of Cabinet officials is an ineffective commission. And some of the testimony shows that there are 43 commissions that have two or more, or at least two and some more of the Cabinet members on them.

Now, in the plan and in the bill, too, this Council is composed of Cabinet members. Well, if they are serving on 43 commissionsSenator RIBICOFF. They never attend. They never go.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. So that means it leaves it to a politically appointed executive director and a politically appointed staff, neither of which is answerable to Congress, and none of whom are under the civil service laws.

CABINET LOYALTY

Senator RIBICOFF. But do you not see, the President of the United States, elected by the people for a term of 4 years, makes decisions that are basically political. Every decision he makes is political. His members of the Cabinet and his people are there to be responsive to the President. You owe a loyalty to the President of the United States. When you feel that you cannot give him that loyalty, you ought to get out. But as long as you are in the Cabinet or that position, you owe the President undivided loyalty.

POLICY DECISIONS

Now, basically, when you get at that stage, this is not a question of civil servants. You have the basic civil service, and I am for them staying. But when it comes to basic policy decision, I do not think the bureaucracy should make policy decisions. The policy decisions should be made by the President and his political appointees if we are going to have a Government responsive to the people and not a bureaucracy who is not responsive to the people but responsive to their jobs and tenure. It makes a lot of difference in basic decisions when you are working on tenure and you are looking for your position in the peaking order, from when you are a political appointee who owes a loyalty to the President.

RIBICOFF DISAPPOINTED IN HOUSE ACTION

This is what disturbs me. I thought there was a great opportunity here to bring meaning to the Presidency and help the Presidency. I must confess that I am disappointed in the action of the House committee in sort of rejecting this plan.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Well, I guess this would not be the first time that the Senate was disappointed with the House or the House with the Senate. I submit that I have not had the advantage of being a Cabinet member, Senator, and I certainly do not quarrel with the gentleman's right, and his background and experience. But I have been in this Congress 28 years. I have had a little experience myself. And I have handled, I guess, more reorganization plans than any man in the House or the Senate has handled. I therefore feel that I have some competence in this field.

A RIGHT TO INFORMATION

I also feel that the Congress has to implement these decisions or reject them and I feel that we have the right to the knowledge—the information, I should say-so that we can make up our minds from the standpoint of our own conscience as to why a certain thing is advocated and if it is justified.

We practice that throughout the Government. It is nothing new at all to call people before congressional committees before we authorize and appropriate. I have had experience in the authorization now for the Atomic Energy Commission, for a number of years, and it is customary for us to call the people involved before it and the people that we can. If it is the Office of Science and Technology that has recommended to the Atomic Energy Commission that they should do a certain thing, we call that man before us and he is in the President's office and he is confirmed by the Senate. And we do get information from him.

I had Dr. Lee DuBridge before us recently on the matter of the impact of electrical generating plants on the United States. We are dealing with domestic things in this bill and in this plan and we have to vote the funds, we have to implement it, we have to say how it should be implemented. I think we have the right to the information, which I believe we will not have if we set up a superlayer between the Budget Bureau and the President that is not accessible.

MORE FAITH IN PRESIDENT THAN BUDGET BUREAU

Senator RIBICOFF. I must confess that I have more faith in the President that I do in the Budget Bureau, even though he is an appointee of the President. I think one of the great crises in this country is the paralysis in Government generally. And that includes Congress. I think that we in Congress have suffered from a special paralysis of our own and our failure to assume our responsibilities and try to run the executive branch. I do not want the executive branch to run us, but I do not want us to run the executive branch, either. But that is it.

GOVERNMENT NEEDS MORE REORGANIZATION

I do respect you and I know of your experience and your knowledge in this. I think the disappointment that I have had is at the failure to have more reorganization plans. Every Budget Director that has been appointed, the first thing he says is, "We are going to reorganize this Government." He never does. They send up a few pipsqueak reorganization plans that do not do the job, when this entire Government is crying for reorganization.

I think so far the Ash Commission has not done very much either. Mr. HOLIFIELD. Well, they spent a million and a half dollars. They should have done something.

Senator RIBICOFF. Well, they have not. This is what happens to every Budget Director. They all know what it is and they sit there in their offices and come up with some picayune, petty plan, and nothing has been done to streamline this Government.

POWER HUNGRY BUREAU OF THE BUDGET

The great disappointment in the thing on administration is when Senator Pearson and myself wanted to setup a new Hoover Commission to get involved, they came up with the Ash Commission. This is from the Budget Bureau, who are jealous of their functions and their power. The happiest group in the Government today will be the Bureau of the Budget by the rejection of this plan, because this gives the Bureau of the Budget a chance to keep playing one element of the Government against the other to keep their power. The Bureau of the Budget has become power hungry and power crazy. This was an opportunity to take away some of the function of the Budget Bureau and put it in the office of the Presidency, where it belongs. It is a great disappointment to me to feel that this great opportunity is going by the board.

Senator JAVITS. Mr. Chairman, one point of fact. There is some intimation in Congressman Holifield's testimony that the Director of the Bureau of the Budget is confirmed by the Senate. He is in fact not. He is a Presidential appointee not confirmed.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. That is true. Now we are putting another layer on that will not be confirmed by the Senate if the plan goes in, so you have two layers, you might say, defined.

RESPONSIVENESS OF BUDGET BUREAU DIRECTORS

But I will say that the Budget Bureau Directors have come before my committee and have been quite responsive. While we cannot force them to come before us, they have been very responsive. We have had good relations with the Budget Bureau. Of course, if you want the Budget Bureau Director confirmed by the Senate, why, of course, you can change the law, as we have changed it in the four organizations that I mentioned which are in the Executive Office of the President. They are responsive to Congress. They do come before us and I will say that Dr. Lee DuBridge gave us some very valuable information as a science adviser to the President. Before that, we could not get either Mr. Wiesner or Kistiakowski or any of the previous science advisers before us because they hid behind the executive cloak of the President.

A RIGHT TO KNOW

I say that I am looking at this from the standpoint of my responsibility as a Member of Congress, as a representative of the people. I say that we have a right to know when policy is made, when national priorities are set by any organization, whether it be in the executive branch or anywhere else. We have a right to know some of the details of it so we can judge as to whether it is right or not before we vote the $197 billion we vote every year.

Senator RIBICOFF. I do want to thank you for giving us the benefit of your views and we do appreciate the time you have given to the committee.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Thank you for your courtesy. I would like to leave for the record the objections to the plan which I gave partly. I would like to leave a copy of the bill and I would like to leave the two letters from the Department of Justice and the one letter from the Attorney General. We have other copies if the members would like to have them.

Senator RIBICOFF. All the documents will be made part of the record. (See exhibit 2, p. 53.)

Senator RIBICOFF. Thank you very much.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Thank you very much for your courtesy, gentlemen. Senator RIBICOFF. Mr. Califano.

I appreciate seeing you again, Mr. Califano, you have been an intimate adviser to a President and member of the Cabinet. I guess you are aware of these problems from long experience and unusual ability.

Proceed as you would, Mr. Califano.

STATEMENT OF JOSEPH A. CALIFANO, JR., WASHINGTON ATTORNEY, FORMER SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

Mr. CALIFANO. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. It is also very good to speak to you again about a problem of this kind.

It is a privilege for me to be invited to testify on Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 1970. This plan would reorganize the Bureau of the Budget into an Office of Management and Budget and create in the Executive Office of the President a domestic council.

I believe that reorganization of the Presidency to strengthen the policymaking machinery available to the President, to enhance his ability to coordinate and evaluate programs and to bring to the Bureau of the Budget the most modern management and systems analyses techniques is of critical importance to our Nation and long overdue, as you have indicated, Mr. Chairman.

The idea of some sort of council is not new; the issue is nonpartisan. Vice President Humphrey recommended such a council during his campaign and you, Mr. Chairman, have long been an advocate of strengthening the programing, planning, and budgeting apparatus of the Federal Government.

GOVERNMENT IS UNRESPONSIVE TO OUR PEOPLE

Today one of the biting edges of legitimate criticism is that government at all levels-Federal, State, and local-and all branches-legislative, judicial, and executive-is unresponsive to the needs of our Nation and our people. Because of the enormous attention placed on the highest office in our land and the enormous responsibility that there resides, the Presidency is the most frequent point of attack for those who are troubled about the nonresponsive nature of our public institutions. As never before in our history, it is essential that the President have the necessary power to deal with the domestic problems for which he is held legally and politically responsible.

Clinton Rossiter has described the Presidency as "one of the few truly successful government institutions ever created." This judgment is being severely questioned by an increasing number of our citizens each day.

PRESIDENCY IS TOO LITTLE CHANGED

The Presidency is certainly the oldest surviving office in the modern world. Most monarchies have passed into history books. Those which remain, like England's, are markedly different from their original conception. A variety of dictatorships-communistic, fascist, nationalistic, but rarely, if ever, benevolent-have come and gone over the years. But the Presidency, as we know it in Richard Nixon's time, is little too little changed from the Presidency of George Washington.

In many ways, presidential power has increased sharply. Obviously, it has increased as the sheer power-economic and military-of the United States has increased. It has increased merely by the rapid burgeoning of the Federal budget. But I, for one, believe that further increases in presidential power are in the making on the domestic side of the Government and rightly should be.

Americans expect a great deal of their Presidents, and, even with all the increases in power to date, the responsibility of the President's office is far greater than the authority that a President has to fulfill that responsibility.

CHANGING ROLE OF THE PRESIDENCY

In terms of domestic needs, to which you have given so much of your care and attention, Mr. Chairman-the programs for the cities, health, the environment and the like-the role of the Federal Government and the role of the President have changed markedly.