This Day In 1970's History: Monday November 17, 1975
- President Ford is leaning toward a program of short-term federal assistance to New York City that would include $2.5 billion in loan guarantees for a three-year period, White House sources said. Most of Mr. Ford's economic advisers have recommended that he support loan guarantees of this amount and duration. Reportedly, $1.1 billion would be earmarked for the current fiscal year, with an additional $1.2 billion to be made available after next June 30. The remaining $200 million was described as a cushion if current estimates were too low. Mr. Ford was expected to announce his decision within 48 hours. [New York Times]
- Eldridge Cleaver, a former leader of the Black Panther Party and a fugitive from justice, said that he would give himself up in New York on his return from seven years of voluntary exile. He made the announcement in Paris at the office of one of his lawyers. He faces charges of murder in a shootout between Black Panthers and policemen in Oakland, Calif., in 1968. [New York Times]
- The Supreme Court ruled that states may not refuse unemployment benefits to women during their last three months of pregnancy and the six weeks following childbirth on the presumption that all such women are unable to work. The Court, overturning a Utah court ruling, said that the presumption was often inaccurate and violated the 14th Amendment. [New York Times]
- A national organization of surgeons and physicians lost a review motion in the Supreme Court in its effort to block a nationwide system that will monitor the treatment that hospitals and doctors give to Medicare and Medicaid patients. The Court affirmed without comment a lower federal court's ruling that upheld as constitutional the legislation for the medical overview. [New York Times]
- The Democratic majority in the New York state Assembly, to the consternation of the leadership and the Governor's office, apparently balked at the prospect of imposing $200 million in tax increases on New York City, one of President Ford's prerequisites for approving federal loan guarantees for the city. Last Friday, Deputy Mayor Stanley Friedman briefed the Assembly Democratic conference in Albany and said that the city had no immediate use in mind for the $200 million because its three-year fiscal plan had not contemplated any new taxes. "Why should we pass taxes when they don't even need the money?" a senior Assemblyman said. [New York Times]
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