The State - News from Nov. 19, 1985

Leaders of the American oil industry meeting in San Francisco said they would rather have a reduction in annual trade and budget deficits than tax reform. John Bookout, chairman of the American Petroleum Institute, said his board of directors believes the deficits are the country’s main problem and “major tax reform should be put off until another time.” George Keller, chairman of Chevron, who is succeeding Bookout as chairman of the institute, said national tax policies should be geared to economic conditions--which are governed by deficits. “Don’t forget,” he said, “that tax reductions led to the deficits.”