LETTER FROM WASHINGTON

“If you figure it all up and put out the figures, it sounds like you’re crazy,” says one official at the Republican National Committee. The problem: a wealth of figures growing out of the Democratic Party platform that just don’t sound believable when translated into campaign rhetoric. The RNC has thus far done a detailed cost analysis of just ten of those proposals that Jimmy Carter has approved, among them the creation of a Consumer Protection Agency, national health insurance, railroad rehabilitation, housing subsidies, Humphrey-Hawkins, postcard registration. The total price, says the RNC, if each program were fully funded for four years, would work out to something on the order of $1.79 trillion. And this figure doesn’t begin to take into consideration the cost of implementing the various programs for federal reorganization that could be expected to be put into place in the wake of a Democratic sweep. Among such schemes are Kennedy’s plan to restructure the FDA into two separate agencies, one for drugs and devices, the other for food and cosmetics. If a national health insurance bill is passed, there will be a new Department of Health to administer it. Jimmy Carter is on record as favoring the creation of a separate Department of Education. And if welfare is totally federalized, as most liberal democrats favor, then there will be a flourishing new Department of Welfare. Thus, in one fell swoop, three new departments, each the size of the present Department of HEW. “I’m beginning to see what the Democrats mean by full employment,” says one Washington newsman. “They’re going to create enough new jobs here so that every American will be able to go to work for the government.”

In the past week there has been a growing feeling in Republican circles that Jimmy Carter could be more vulnerable than he now looks. His lead in the polls is formidable, but Republican strategists increasingly believe he can be nailed to the planks of the Democratic platform if he is forced to justify the huge sums of money that will be required to convert those planks into programs. The figures are so mind-boggling, they believe, that Carter would be hard pressed to defend them with a straight face.

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Presidential Election

“If you figure it all up and put out the figures, it sounds like you’re crazy,” says one official at the Republican National Committee. The problem: a wealth of figures growing out of the Democratic Party platform that just don’t sound believable when translated into campaign rhetoric. The RNC has thus far done a detailed cost analysis of just ten of those proposals that Jimmy Carter has approved, among them the creation of a Consumer Protection Agency, national health insurance, railroad rehabilitation, housing subsidies, Humphrey-Hawkins, postcard registration. The total price, says the RNC, if each program were fully funded for four years, would work out to something on the order of $1.79 trillion. And this figure doesn’t begin to take into consideration the cost of implementing the various programs for federal reorganization that could be expected to be put into place in the wake of a Democratic sweep. Among such schemes are Kennedy’s plan to restructure the FDA into two separate agencies, one for drugs and devices, the other for food and cosmetics. If a national health insurance bill is passed, there will be a new Department of Health to administer it. Jimmy Carter is on record as favoring the creation of a separate Department of Education. And if welfare is totally federalized, as most liberal democrats favor, then there will be a flourishing new Department of Welfare. Thus, in one fell swoop, three new departments, each the size of the present Department of HEW. “I’m beginning to see what the Democrats mean by full employment,” says one Washington newsman. “They’re going to create enough new jobs here so that every American will be able to go to work for the government.”

In the past week there has been a growing feeling in Republican circles that Jimmy Carter could be more vulnerable than he now looks. His lead in the polls is formidable, but Republican strategists increasingly believe he can be nailed to the planks of the Democratic platform if he is forced to justify the huge sums of money that will be required to convert those planks into programs. The figures are so mind-boggling, they believe, that Carter would be hard pressed to defend them with a straight face.