Jerry Shows 'I'm Still President'

WHITE HOUSE Jerry Shows 'I'm Still President'

Puerto Rico's new Governor-elect, Carlos Romero Barcelo, was startled to be summoned from a luncheon table in San Juan on the last day of the year by an urgent telephone call from the White House. The message: within an hour, President Gerald Ford would propose that the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico become the U.S.'s 51st state.

Romero was not the only official to be surprised. Secretary of the Interior Thomas Kleppe, whose department is responsible for drafting statehood legislation, learned of the proposal the night before it was released. Senate leaders were notified a few minutes before the announcement, but House Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill Jr. was not. "The whole thing is crazy," said an aide to the Senate Interior Committee, which monitors Puerto Rican affairs. Added a House Territorial Subcommittee staffer: "The key is for Puerto Rico to show some interest in becoming a state, and it hasn't."

So what was Jerry Ford up to? When asked why he had not left the matter to

Jimmy Carter, Ford replied testily: "Because I'm President until January 20." The statehood surprise surely reflected the familiar predicament of a lame-duck Chief Executive whose desire to deepen his mark in history is matched only by his loss of real power. That was evident, too, in a flurry of other last-minute moves by the President, who:

> Asked Congress to cut individual income taxes by $10 billion and business taxes by $2.5 billion, and increase the Social Security tax in 1978.

> Announced that he was thinking of ordering an end to gasoline price controls--a move that Congress could, and probably would, veto within 15 days.

> Named four new ambassadors.

> Was considering a salary increase for high-ranking federal officials (the pay for Congressmen would go from $44,600 to $57,000), federal energy agency proposals, and even some kind of amnesty for Viet Nam draft evaders and deserters.

Even if Ford manages to get his tax and gasoline price proposals into legislative form by Jan. 20, they will be dealt with by a new President and a new Congress, with their own ideas about the nation's needs. As for Ford's well-intentioned championing of statehood for Puerto Rico, it left some Puerto Ricans muttering that the White House was trying to force them into a "shotgun wedding." Newly installed Governor Romero, a longtime statehood advocate, offered his opinion in his inaugural address: he pointedly chose not even to mention the Ford proposal.

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