Ask the Scholar
Document scope · 1 page
Scholar
Ask about this object, its catalog metadata, its source description, or the page inventory.
For page-specific OCR and visual context, open one of the page chats.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
1535309
label
1976/10/13 - Economic Policy Board
core
doc
dtoType
document
citationUrl
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
1535309
sourceUrl
contentType
document
title
1976/10/13 - Economic Policy Board
citationUrl
collections
James M. Cannon Files (Ford Administration)
James Cannon's Meetings Files
subjects
Small business
iiifBase
thumbnailUrl
largeImageUrl
imageCount
1
hasImages
yes
source
import
hasTranscription
no
Source extras
naId
1535309
coverageEndDate
logicalDate
1976-10-31
month
10
year
1976
coverageStartDate
logicalDate
1976-10-01
month
10
year
1976
levelOfDescription
fileUnit
recordType
description
ocrSource
nara-archive
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
document
url
mediaId
e87ae3e6cc2b576c
ocrText
The original documents are located in Box 62, folder "1976/10/13 - Economic Policy Board"
of the James M. Cannon Files at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
Copyright Notice
The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of
photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Gerald Ford donated to the United
States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections.
Works prepared by U.S. Government employees as part of their official duties are in the public
domain. The copyrights to materials written by other individuals or organizations are presumed to
remain with them. If you think any of the information displayed in the PDF is subject to a valid
copyright claim, please contact the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
Digitized from Box 62 of the James M. Cannon Files at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
ECONOMIC POLICY BOARD
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING
October 13, 1976
8:30 a.m.
Roosevelt Room
AGENDA
1. Small Dollar Coin
Treasury
2. Report of Task Force on Small
SBA
Business
October 0, 1970
Jmc - atten d which
EPB mtgs.
ECONOMIC POLICY BOARD
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Proposed Agenda
Monday, October 11, 1976
No Executive Committee Meeting
Tuesday, October 12, 1976
Ant
1. Maritime Policy
Labor
2.
Report of Task Force on Productivity
CEA
Wednesday, October 13, 1976 EPB-ERC
1. Shoe Industry Monitoring Report
CIEP
five 3.
Small Dollar Coin
Treasury
Reduced Dependency Objectives (oil)
FEA
4. Alaskan Natural Gas Legislation
FEA
5. Report of Task Force on Small Business
SBA
Thursday, October 14, 1976
No Executive Committee Meeting
Friday, October 15, 1976
No Executive Committee Meeting
FORD is LIBRARY 07V839
EYES ONLY
MINUTES OF THE
ECONOMIC POLICY BOARD
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING
October 12, 1976
Attendees: Messrs. Seidman, Greenspan, Lynn, Dixon, Zarb, Vetter,
Malkiel, Perritt, Biller, Kasputys, Porter, Hormats,
Rosenblatt
1.
Budget Authority and Outlays During 1976
The Executive Committee discussed the issue raised recently
regarding the size and nature of any shortfalls in Federal budget
obligations and outlays during 1976.
Decision
The Office of Management and Budget will prepare a question and
answer on this subject for use by Administration officials.
2. Report of Task Force on Productivity
The Executive Committee reviewed a white paper prepared by the
Task Force on Productivity. The discussion focused on reasons
for the slowdown in productivity growth, including a decline in the
increase in the stock of capital per worker, demographic character-
istics of the labor force, shifts in the composition of output, and
effects of changes in technology. The discussion also focused on a
series of policies for improving productivity growth, including tax
incentives to encourage investment, the promotion of technological
progress through increased research and development expenditures,
regulatory reform to eliminate unnecessary and obsolete regulation
which impedes efficiency of production, and the need for balanced
economic growth. The Task Force will continue their efforts to
relate these findings to measuring potential output.
Decision
Executive Committee members were requested to provide their
comments on the white paper to Mr. Malkiel.
EYES ONLY
2
3.
Secretary Usery's Propeller Club Speech
The Executive Committee reviewed a draft speech by Secretary
Usery to the Propeller Club scheduled for Thursday, October 14.
The discussion focused on the general thrust of the speech and
specific elements which should be included or not included.
Decision
The Executive Committee recommended that a thrust of the speech
address the national security needs for a strong merchant marine.
Commerce, NSC, and Labor will coordinate the preparation of
material on the national security needs for a merchant marine for
inclusion in the speech. It was agreed that the speech would not
include mention of Alaskan oil or changes in the administration of
the cargo preference system.
4. Shoe Industry Monitoring Report
The Executive Committee reviewed the report of the Task Force on
the status of the non-rubber footwear industry. The discussion
centered on the softening of domestic production and increase in the
import penetration ratio, the existing monitoring system, and the
adjustment assistance program.
Decision
The Executive Committee approved the Special Trade Representative
endorsing the reopening of the shoe escape clause case by the
International Trade Commission and requesting that the investiga-
tion be expedited by the ITC. The Executive Committee also
requested the Task Force to study possible changes in the adjustment
assistance program.
EYES ONLY
RBP
10.12.76
THE UNIVERSITY BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM
(UBDC)
The Small Business Act of 1953, which created the Small Business
Administration, recognized that preservation of the free enterprise
system, upon which our national security, individual freedoms, and
well-being depend, rested on developing the actual and potential of
small business.
As President Ford pointed out recently, small business has serious
problems developing the management capabilities it needs. I have been
impressed by the tremendous aid that the Nation's universities have
been to the farmers and to large businesses over the years, and I
advocate a network of University Business Development Centers, cooperating
with a number of Federal departments and agencies, who can give similar
aid to small and medium-sized business."
What is a University Business Development Center (UBDC)?
It is a comprehensive framework for cooperatively interrelating the
academic, professional, and technological resources of universities
and colleges with the appropriate existing programs of Government Agencies
to strengthen the Nation's business community and to contribute to the
development of the American economy.
The basic idea behind the UBDC is the mobilization of available private
and public resources to meet some of the Nation's most critical economic
needs while providing broad-based, relevant education to students. This
can be done at very little additional total cost to the taxpayer.
The example serving as a point of departure for UBDC activities is that
of agriculture. Since the enactment of the Morrill Act, more than 100
years ago, the understanding developed through university and govern-
mental cooperative activities has been shared and enjoyed on a continuing
basis with American farmers and farm communities. The result has been
the emergence of the United States as a leading world food producer,
and the acceptance of farming by the American people as an important
and meaningful pursuit of life.
Emphasizing the need of the small business community and the Nation for
assistance are figures released by the National Center for Productivity
(and Quality of Working Life). These show that between 1950 and 1971,
the average annual improvement in output per man hour was 5.8 percent
for the farm sector as compared with 2.9 percent a year for trade
and manufacturing. The figures for service-oriented businesses--heavily
dominated by small business--are estimated to be even lower. The
Nation's current low standing in the world productivity race is in
no small part caused by lack of management ability and applied technology
in the small business sector.
2
Let us examine the UBDC concept more closely. UBDC's will differ
depending on the needs of each area's business community and the
resources available to the cooperating school. The university will
manage the UBDC. It will correlate the programs of several Government
Agencies which now exist on university campuses. Mutually-supportive
existing private and public, Federal and State programs are being
gathered together into a cohesive master plan for increased efficiency
and greater leveraging of resources for the support and assistance
of the small business community.
These include such participants as:
The Cooperative Education Programs of HEW;
The Economic Development Administration's University
Center, Minority Business Development, and Technology
Information Programs of Commerce;
SBA's Small Business Institute's counseling programs
involving 20,000 students and 2,000 faculty members in
398 colleges and universities.
The Innovation Center Program of the National Science
Foundation;
The Training Programs of Labor;
The Financial, Procurement and Technical Assistance
Programs of SBA; and
The Farmers Home Administration Business, Industrial,
and Recreational Development Programs of Agriculture;
And many others.
Add to these the volunteer services of 8,000 retired and active business
executives in the Service Corps of Retired/Active Executives (SCORE/ACE)
numerous professional, trade and service organizations who also volun-
teer aid to the small business community; cooperating individuals and
organizations from the local private sector; national foundations;
and the full resources of the universities themselves to provide the
necessary linkage. These are examples of the resources UBDC will draw
upon for the benefit of the small business sector.
The secret of UBDC is that coordinated university management will make
this collection of proven programs work as an integrated unit serving
the whole community, rather than as a patchwork quilt of variously
administered programs, all with different aims and without the oppor-
tunity of functioning in the very heart of the university.
3
One reason we believe this concept will work is the fact that all the
participants--Federal agencies, communities, organizations and individuals,
universities, faculty and students--and the small business community for
whose benefit it is being created--have something tangible to gain from
their involvement in UBDC.
For members of the small business community who are plagued by more
than just money problems, the program offers in-depth counseling to
correct the management deficiencies which cause most business failures.
For skilled craftsmen and technicians who want to go into business but
lack the necessary management skills, the program offers training and
experienced advisors. Such help should prove invaluable to present
and prospective business owners who could not otherwise afford it,
and might fail without it.
For participating students from the Nation's colleges and universities,
UBDC offers a practical training ground which supplements academic
theory by permitting them to address live problems in a real business
environment. For the graduate students in the program there will be
a whole new field of research and thesis subjects. Students in some
of the cooperative education programs will be able to earn part of
their tuition.
Faculty members will have the opportunity to broaden the scope of
their activities, and to use a whole new range of research for the
academically-oriented articles and books which are so vital to their
professional advancement.
Both state-supported and private schools will be provided with valuable--
and measurable--community service opportunities which local townspeople
and state legislators will appreciate. Desirable public approval and
the addition of adult study courses may be important in these days of
declining school populations.
For the local small business community, the establishment, retention,
and continued growth of the small businesses as employment-furnishing,
tax-paying entities is implicit in the UBDC program.
And, finally, for the Nation's free enterprise system, UBDC may serve
as a quasi-guarantee that it will, indeed, continue to exist. Aid to
new businesses, restoration of existing businesses which are troubled,
and the encouragement of increasing numbers of well trained college
graduates to enter the world of business for themselves--all of these
are benefits we have every right to expect from UBDC. Just as each
local UBDC has the capacity to relate directly to--and influence for
the better--the economic status of its community, with emphasis on
4
the special needs of the disadvantaged and the minorities in our midst,
so the combined efforts of a UBDC network operating throughout the
country can have great impact on the economic development of the Nation.
A functioning UBDC can offer the following services to its business
clients:
Business and product evaluation and development;
Entrepreneur evaluation, recommendations, counseling
and training as required;
Analysis, correction and followup of financial, marketing,
technical, production, legal, and any other type problem
faced by small business owners.
Feasibility studies and development of business plans for
present and future entrepreneurs.
Access to and application of technology, paid for by the
taxpayers in over $350 billion worth of research and develop-
ment projects since 1947, which will open new avenues to
small business owners who could not otherwise afford it.
Assistance in not only surviving (when 57% of new businesses
fail during the first five years) but in expanding on a
solid basis.
Today, because of the lag of our small and medium-size business sector,
our country ranks last among the eleven leading nations of the world
in productivity growth. With the establishment of each new University
Business Development Center the small business sector of that area
will be assisted to grow and flourish. As UBDC's become operational
throughout the country, they will do for the small business community
of this country what the Agricultural Extension Service has done for
the farming community.
This is not an SBA program - although SBA's small business constituents
stand to gain substantial benefits. It must be an all-Government
program, and needs the support of the Economic Policy Board and all
Cabinet Departments and Agencies if it is to succeed. The program has
been receiving excellent cooperation to date.
The Office of Management and Budget has given approval to a modest
budget to pilot the concept in ten universities in this calendar year.
The first will hopefully be opened by President Ford this month in
California.