News stories from Saturday May 15, 1976

Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:

Hoping for a Democratic president and Democratic Congress next year, the Democratic majority in the House has proposed a realignment of legislative priorities over the next five years, putting national prosperity first and helping to achieve it by providing 12 million new jobs and cutting taxes by $10 billion. The Democrats foresee a revitalized economy producing federal budget surpluses by 1980 that would be invested in national health, educational, energy and environmental programs. The economic program was prepared over the last nine months under the direction of the House leadership and will be offered to the Democratic Platform Committee, which is expected to incorporate many of the proposals in its presidential platform planks. [New York Times] President Ford, badly in need of a primary victory in his home state, conducted an old-fashioned whistle-stop train campaign across Michigan. The train started in Flint, where Mr. Ford on the platform of the observation car with Mrs. Ford beside him, asked a large crowd to "help us on Tuesday. We must win in Michigan and Flint is very important." At every other stop as the train moved in a southwest direction he appealed urgently for support in Tuesday's primary and made it clear that he believed his political future depended on a victory. [New York Times] Ronald Reagan almost certainly paid no federal Income tax in 1970, despite an income of more than $73,000. He also appears to have paid less federal income tax than most people with a small fraction of his income in at least two other recent years. These conclusions are based on an analysis of information about his income and taxes for the years 1970 through 1975 that Mr. Reagan has made public since the formal start of his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. An analysis of the limited information that he has so far made public indicates that he has made investments that were specifically designed to take advantage of legal provisions in the tax laws. [New York Times] Hundreds of teenagers streamed up Fifth Avenue from Washington Square Park smoking marijuana as police officers assigned to the area watched. The 1,500 marchers in the sixth annual National Marijuana Day Parade arrived late in the afternoon at Sheep Meadow in Central Park, where they continued to smoke while listening to performances of rock bands. "We're a little outnumbered," said one young officer when asked why he did not arrest the youths for smoking marijuana in public. [New York Times] What New York City needs most to attract and hold the head offices of America's biggest industrial corporations are lower personal taxes and a more efficient and less costly city government, according to leaders of 40 such companies who responded to a survey by the New York Times. The survey found that the executives had little hope that the reforms would be made. Of those who responded, two-thirds said that they expected conditions affecting their companies to worsen and just over half said that they were acting on that view by directing their headquarters growth outside New York. [New York Times] Samuel Eliot Morrison, the undisputed Grand Old Man of American historians, died in the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston from the effects of a stroke. He was 88 years old. [New York Times] There is considerable concern in Washington that Jordan is planning to buy an air defense system -- which Jordan had expected to get from the United States -- from the Soviet Union. The purchase seems likely with the expected visit to Jordan this week of a high-level military delegation headed by Marshal Pavel Kutakhov, head of the Soviet air force and a Deputy Defense Minister. This would be the first purchase by Jordan of Soviet arms, and American officials believe that it might be the start of Soviet influence in Jordan, which has traditionally been pro-Western and pro-American. It is possible that Jordan still may buy the American system, but a combination of political and economic factors, involving Saudi Arabia and Israel as well as the United States and Jordan, have made the sale more and more improbable, State Department officials said. [New York Times] West Germany is celebrating the American Bicentennial almost as if it were its own. A ceremony in honor of the Bicentennial at Paulskirche in Frankfurt was attended by 1,000 members of the West German political, business and cultural elite to express gratitude to America for helping to bring democracy to the German people after World War II. Vice President Rockefeller and other Americans were among the guests. Mr. Rockefeller, who told the assemblage that his forebears emigrated from Rockenfeld, near the city of Neuwied on the Rhine, near Koblenz, in 1723, responded to the West German celebration with a speech about the common bonds of free enterprise and political liberty. [New York Times]