Letter from Washington

The Administration’s revenue-sharing Plan has lost one of its most eloquent group of lobbyists. The mayors of major cities, who had done President Nixon such good service early in the fight, have now largely deserted; some are even lobbying against the plan.

The reason for the disaffection is the skilful handling of the revenue-sharing issue by House Ways and Means Chairman Wilbur Mills (D., Ark.). A potential Presidential candidate and an ambiguous friend of the Administration, Mills had already trained his guns on revenue sharing. His coup de grâce was his proposal for direct federal aid to the cities. The move had the attraction to mayors of getting rid of the state middleman implicit in parts of the Administration plan. As a political ploy, it split the governors supporting the plan from the mayors who had been backing it.

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The Administration’s revenue-sharing Plan has lost one of its most eloquent group of lobbyists. The mayors of major cities, who had done President Nixon such good service early in the fight, have now largely deserted; some are even lobbying against the plan.

The reason for the disaffection is the skilful handling of the revenue-sharing issue by House Ways and Means Chairman Wilbur Mills (D., Ark.). A potential Presidential candidate and an ambiguous friend of the Administration, Mills had already trained his guns on revenue sharing. His coup de grâce was his proposal for direct federal aid to the cities. The move had the attraction to mayors of getting rid of the state middleman implicit in parts of the Administration plan. As a political ploy, it split the governors supporting the plan from the mayors who had been backing it.