Vice President Ford: "Why I Will Not Run in '76": An Exclusive Interview

A  I have many reservations about it.

What worries me is that no committee of Congress has seriously studied public financing of presidential or senatorial or congressional campaigns. Every time the matter has come up it's been brought up as a floor amendment—usually on the Senate side—without committee hearings on the subject.

To this day, there has never been a thorough investigation of how to do it or how it would work.

What concerns me is that once you start down the road of public financing on a major scale, I don't think you'll ever be able to go back. We ought to look thoroughly at the alternatives and where we might end up. It's a serious matter that deserves more than just a few Senators or a few House members putting together a bill and shooting it directly to floor.

Public financing may be desirable. It may be an answer. But I just don't believe it has been given serious-enough consideration.

Q  It is constitutional to use taxpayers' money to finance campaigns for candidates they may not favor?

A  I'm sure questions will be raised about it in the courts. There are very able lawyers who will take the position that it is unconstitutional, at least as far as minority-party candidates are concerned.

Q  Mr. Vice President, do you think the executive branch of the Government—the Presidency—has acquired or asserted too much authority over the years? Should Congress reassert or expand its authority, as against the White House?

A  Unquestionably, there has been a transition of power from the Congress to the executive. I think most of it took place during World War II and subsequent periods of military conflict.

There has also been some authority given up by Congress, even in peacetime. In many instances, I would say the Congress has done this willingly. But, to some extent, Congress may have been bludgeoned into it.

I hear these cries that Congress is not going to give up any more power to the President and is going to retrieve some that it has already given up.

Yet, in this legislation to deal with the energy emergency, Congress is giving up potentially more authority than it has given up in almost any other area.

Q  Is this bad?

A  It may be necessary. I'm not saying it isn't. All I'm saying is that I wish Congress would stop protesting about loss of power one day and then giving up more power the next day, figuratively speaking.

Q  Do you expect to see a reversal of this flow of power—back toward Congress and away from the executive?

A  Not in any major way.

Q  How serious do you think this energy situation is? And how long do you think the emergency will last?

A  I've listened to a lot of experts, and the experts say we've got a crisis right now, and it's not going to get materially better for another 12 months—and it's going to continue to be a real problem all through the 1970s.

Of course, if there should be a settlement in the Middle East and the oil embargo by Arab nations is lifted, that would help significantly.

But experts seem to agree there would have been a fuel-oil and gasoline shortage even if there hadn't been the embargo—not because of a lack of crude oil, but because of a lack of refinery capability. The refinery shortage can be remedied, as I understand it, in maybe a year or 18 months. But if you don't remedy the crude-oil situation, more refinery capacity won't help.

Q  What solutions do you suggest?

A  Congress ought to move on deregulation of natural gas at the wellhead. You should talk to people from Louisiana or Texas. I was with several Congressmen from those areas recently, and it's amazing to hear the stories they tell about gas wells that have been capped and will not be uncapped, because the owners will not sell the gas at the price the Federal Power Commission fixes. They're just going to keep that gas in the ground.