This Day In 1970's History: Tuesday January 7, 1975
- President Ford's emerging energy policy will feature higher taxes on crude oil, imported and domestic, to discourage energy consumption and oil imports. This would raise perhaps $15 billion in annual revenue to finance a tax cut without adding significantly to the budget deficit. He has statutory authority to impose a $3-a-barrel tax on imported crude, but Congress would have to enact a parallel tax on domestic production. The tax would add 7 to 10 cents to the price of gasoline. Some administration planners fear the policy will create inflationary shocks, aggravate the recession and provoke high foreign prices. [New York Times]
- The Chrysler Corporation, in the first significant attempt to stimulate car sales by reducing prices, plans to announce a system of rebates amounting from $200 to $400 for buyers of certain new Chrysler cars. It aims at unloading a 120-day backlog of unsold cars and winning customers from its competitors in the five-week program running from Jan. 12 to Feb. 16. [New York Times]
- Secretary of State Kissinger is considering "a massive effort' to persuade Congress to give him more flexibility in the day-to-day conduct of foreign affairs, ending what he regards as unwarranted interference, he has told his closest aides. The last Congress, he has complained, severely restricted administration action in crucial areas including the Soviet Union, Indochina, Latin America and the Near East. [New York Times]
- The nine members of the European Economic Community agreed in London today to support a plan to invest surplus revenues of oil-producing countries through the International Monetary Fund. It would involve creation of a $10 billion to $12 billion facility which the I.M.F. would guarantee. They showed coolness to a United States proposal to create a $25 billion facility. The American plan would involve only the industrialized consumer countries in setting the lending policy, while the European plan would also involve oil-producing countries and developing nations in the process. [New York Times]
- North Vietnamese forces captured Phuoc Binh, a provincial capital, after a week-long siege. The Vietcong's Provisional Revolutionary Government has asserted that the aim of its stepped-up military campaign is to "force" the United States and the Saigon government to carry out the two-year-old Paris peace agreements. [New York Times]
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