December 30, 1968 memo from Transportation Secretary Alan Boyd to White House domestic policy chief Joseph Califano transmitting a five-page summary of an internal USDOT proposal to create an Urban Mass Transportation Trust Fund to be financed by an extension of the existing excise tax on automobile sales. The summary says that the proposal would put the mass transit program on the same long-term footing as the highway program and would help “redress the imbalance created by the massive availability and ease with which highway construction funds become available.”
Boyd hand-wrote at the bottom of the memo: “P.S. I reiterate my view that it would be a grave mistake to submit legislation during the current Administration.”
The DOT summary sounds very similar to a bill introduced the following year by Senator Harrison Williams (D-NJ) (S. 1032, 91st Congress).