Stumbling to a Showdown

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As the budget stalemate has pointed up all too clearly, members of Congress may well be so obsessed with partisan politics and their own re-election chances that they are simply unable to act decisively to help rescue a deeply troubled economy. Contends Idaho's Republican Senator James McClure: "We've got to exert responsibility. The country is hurting. I think Congress should make the decision to cut the deficits even if the President won't. And if we don't, the public ought to blame Congress." But Colorado Democrat Gary Hart, a member of the Senate Budget Committee, disagrees. "You don't force a budget down the President's throat," he says. "He's the key player and the key roadblock. Nothing will move before the President does. The buck stops on his desk."

But the fact that there is an internal debate within Congress over whether it can and should lead or only react to presidential initiatives shows how uncertain the two houses have become about their own role in the Federal Government. If Congress is unwilling to exert its power over the purse, it has lost its grip on its most fundamental constitutional mandate.

The self-doubts on Capitol Hill stem from last year's divisive battles over President Reagan's economic program. Until 1981, Congress had been making considerable progress in taking charge of the budget. In a series of post-Watergate reforms, it had reacted sharply to Richard Nixon's attempt to use the weapon of impoundment by refusing to spend money specifically appropriated by Congress for certain purposes. It passed legislation banning this practice. It also created a highly professional Congressional Budget Office and two new budget committees in the House and Senate. These committees were given authority to set spending limits for key budget items, enforceable on all other relevant committees when approved by each chamber of Congress in a single sweeping vote.

But last year Reagan shrewdly showed that this procedure, known as "reconciliation," could also be turned against Congress. By demanding a single up or down vote, he managed to get his own budget cuts approved in toto and prevented them from being chewed up, committee by committee.

Unfortunately, the result was a bill that—whatever its economic merit or lack of same—ranks as one of the sloppiest pieces of legislation ever approved by Congress. It was a shambles of bits and pieces, containing unnumbered pages and handwritten notes. Yet Congress was awed by a President who claimed a mandate for change and had a gift for persuading the public. It tamely adopted a budget that made a mockery of the recent reforms and insulted the legislative process.