00:00:07.140 - 00:00:35.050

scene one. Take 1, 21 55 smells We present at this time an informal discussion with Senator George Smathers from the nation's capital. Now here is the first question some of this matters just why did you oppose the administration tourist tax? I didn't think it was a very good idea.

00:00:35.060 - 00:00:51.050

I think I recognize we have a balance of payments deficit throughout the world, but I didn't believe that the way we want to eliminate the deficit is by stopping people from traveling in particularly, I don't think we want to stop people from traveling in the Western Hemisphere.

00:00:51.540 - 00:01:11.650

I'm all from traveling first in the United States, and then I'm from traveling in our area of the world. Particularly. The administration's position did not make a great sense to me because we have a favorable balance of trade with Mexico some 443 millions of dollars each year.

00:01:11.650 - 00:01:30.410

We have a favorable balance of trade with Canada of some $560 million a year. We have a favorable balance of trade with the Bahamian islands. For every tourist dollar that's spent in the Bahamas. We get spent back in the United States and most of it in Florida, a dollar and 62 cents.

00:01:30.560 - 00:01:47.700

So that doesn't help our balance of payments to stop people from traveling to the Bahama Islands or make it more restrictive for them to travel. The same thing was true of Bermuda for every dollar that was spent by American tourists in Bermuda, why the Bermudan spent in the United States, the dollar and 20 cents.

00:01:48.060 - 00:02:05.950

So here was a bill, however, which was going to restrict travel into those areas which actually hurt our balance of payments situation. And so I was very frank to tell the secretary of the Treasury that I didn't when he testified before the committee, I was chairing the committee that day that I didn't think this was the way to do it.

00:02:06.440 - 00:02:22.220

I would be willing to put on a head tax. If the balance of payments deficit is so bad that we need to do something very serious and drastic about it, then let's meet it realistically and put on a head tax of $100 and stop people for traveling for one year.

00:02:22.360 - 00:02:45.550

We could save $2 billion that way, but the Treasury said no. It isn't that bad. It's just bad enough to put on a restrictive tax, which in fact hurts our friends. We've already lost Cuba. We've lost about to lose Santa Domingo, certainly as a travel area with very few people go to Haiti anymore, the whole area of the Caribbean is in the turmoil.

00:02:45.550 - 00:03:03.050

And if we make it difficult for those 130 Bahamians to live, reliable, have some trouble there. So I was opposed to it for many reasons. Senator, you testified before a committee to amend the war on poverty bill so that it would cover the elderly poor. Just what was that?

00:03:03.240 - 00:03:28.280

Well, in the war on poverty, there's been a lot of money appropriated, a lot of action taken, and it's all calculated, apparently, too. Take care of young people who come from the hinterlands in some instances, or ghettos in downtown areas in other instances who have not had much opportunity either for training or education or to get a job, and everybody's put an emphasis on that.

00:03:28.290 - 00:03:51.790

Now, as chairman of the Committee on Aging, I get a lot of testimony and there are a lot of stories that told to me that I know are backed up by other stories throughout the nation talking about the poverty among the elderly, poor. And as a matter of fact, a third of all the elderly people are in poverty according to the standards of this particular act.

00:03:51.790 - 00:04:12.000

And yet within the operation of their act, there's no place or no section or nobody who's worried particularly about helping the poor people who are old. And I think this is one of the most tragic areas of poverty, and particularly for those people who lose their job when they're about 55 years old and they go two out to get a new one.

00:04:12.000 - 00:04:29.670

And no business wants to hire them because they upset their pension programs. The government won't hire them because they don't meet the criteria of having to be young and upset the government's program. And so they are without means of support, and they don't get their social security.

00:04:29.670 - 00:04:46.960

They're 65. Something needs to be done for these people. So that's why I went up and made these recommendations that the poverty act be amended and a new section be set up and designed to help the elderly, poor because this is an area of great need.

00:04:47.640 - 00:05:13.190

Thank you very much, Senator George Smathers. I'll return you now to your station announcer Senators matters. The stock market's shown some terrific fluctuations in the past week. Is that an indication that there should be concern over our economy? I don't believe there's any need to be concerned over our economy.

00:05:13.390 - 00:05:50.860

People might be. There probably doesn't need to be concerned over the stock market. But as far as our economy is concerned, our economy is excellent. We have, as we know, the lowest percentage of unemployed people that we have had in 10 years. We find that capital investment is still running at a higher rate than ever before in our history, where corporation profits and individual profits are still running at the highest peak in all of our history, we find that plans for the future with respect to our big businesses are very optimistic and very hopeful.

00:05:51.340 - 00:06:10.920

The secretary of commerce just stated here very recently that the country is about his sound and solid position, and it's ever been so. There is no reason for people to be concerned about the economic strength of the United States of America. But when you get to talking about the stock market, that's something that nobody can predict.

00:06:10.920 - 00:06:25.760

And, of course, nobody has any control over and that I think a lot of emotion is tied up in the stock market. And I would have no advice to give to anybody with respect to the stock market, either pro or con, because I'm I'm not an expert in that field.

00:06:26.100 - 00:06:49.660

Many people both for and against Medicare or watching, uh, great anticipation the discussion of this problem, which will come up on the Senate floor, I believe, just after the Fourth of July holiday. Now how how do you stand on that particular piece of legislation? Well, of course, as I have stated on numerous occasions, I expect this time to support the Medicare bill.

00:06:50.440 - 00:07:14.210

I we had that we put up a fight for years to try to get to curb bills. Approach adopted. We fought for many years to try to get provisions for private insurance companies into the program. We were unsuccessful. President Johnson ran in 19 in the fall of 1964 pretty much on this whole issue of Medicare.

00:07:14.590 - 00:07:38.460

The people of Florida have demonstrated not once but many times in their own wishes that they want some Medicare program or a program which is financed by Social Security at least and which will provide for elderly people. Uh, after they get 65 in the event of their illness or some catastrophic accident or something of that nature that has been well demonstrated.

00:07:38.940 - 00:08:00.520

So that having been the case in our state, I made up my mind in 19 the fall of 1964 that I would support a program of medical care calculated to help the older people under conditions of illness and sickness and financed by the Social Security methods.

00:08:00.530 - 00:08:23.350

Will there be definite aid for catastrophic illnesses for particularly for the agent in this bill? Well, yes, of course there will be. We have a difficulty determine what we mean by catastrophic illness. Actually, the statistics that we now have showed that the average a stay of persons in the hospital, even the agent is less than a week.

00:08:24.140 - 00:09:02.130

And then now if you say if you change that to terminal illnesses, the illnesses where they open up the man they disease got cancer, and he's never going to recover. Why, then we're going to have to. Because of the shortage of hospitals, Beds were going to have to have some faculty of medical faculty to look at each case and make a determination as to whether or not they move this particular individual from the hospital where there is no longer can any good be done for him into a nursing home or something like that where he can expire, we hope, and what little comfort he's unable to get.

00:09:02.130 - 00:09:29.880

And certainly with some dignity, this will all be taken care of. Now what the Senate did that was different from the House bill. Whether the Senate bill provided that, uh, we would extend beyond the 90 day period of time, we would allow people to stay in the hospital for additional 30 days, but they would have to pay $10 a day, and this was put in there to keep people from going into the hospital and just lingering in there and taking up all the room.

00:09:29.880 - 00:09:47.180

In addition to that, we extended the time in which they can stay in nursing homes so that now they can stay in nursing homes as long as 180 days under the bill. However, there are a lot of details to be worked out in the bill. Actually, we are in the Senate Finance Committee.

00:09:47.180 - 00:10:04.400

We added something like 137 new amendments. Now when we get to the floor, we'll have to probably take some more refinements. We then have to go to house, but eventually we're going to pass. I think you're very useful and very practical and, I hope, workable medical care.

00:10:04.400 - 00:10:14.060

Bill that passages sometime in the future at some time in the month of July or the first part of August. Thank you very much. Senator George Smathers, I return you now to your station announcer.