Playing Hardball in February

& The congressional and baseball seasons usually run in rough parallel: light workouts in late winter; an irregularly quickening tempo culminating in serious legislative battles about the time of the major league playoffs and World Series. But this year the politicians are well ahead of the ballplayers. While pitchers and catchers were just starting to limber up last week under the Florida sun, Congress and the Reagan Administration had already worked themselves into a snarl of midseason intensity. A filibuster was tying up the Senate, an attempted compromise between the Administration and its Democratic opponents fell apart within hours, and partisan tempers were rising.

The specific issue, loans to debt-burdened farmers, was never resolved, only postponed until this week. The early outbreak of political hardball darkened prospects that Congress and the Administration can later cope successfully with the big domestic tasks of this year: enacting a budget that will significantly reduce swollen deficits, and pushing through sweeping tax reform. Both efforts will require the kind of bipartisan cooperation within Congress and with the White House that was sadly lacking in the farm-credit fight. Choosing a military metaphor, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici said of the farm-loan battle: "This is just the first barrage of the political year."

It was a noisy barrage. As soon as Congress reconvened after its Lincoln's Birthday recess, Democrats David Boren of Oklahoma and James Exon of Nebraska began a Senate filibuster aimed at forcing the Administration to make more loan money available to farmers who might otherwise go broke before they can get their spring planting done. The most important business delayed was confirmation of Edwin Meese as Attorney General, which has already been on hold for a year. Robert Dole, the new Majority Leader, called the maneuver "blackmail" and testily declared, "If we start playing political games rather than responding to the real concerns of these issues, then we are finished." Shot back Democrat Tom Harkin of Iowa: "Those of us who are seeing thousands of our farmers go under . . . are not here to play political games."

In marathon meetings with farm-state Senators of both parties and with Agriculture Secretary John Block, Dole worked out a compromise: Block, with President Reagan's approval, would sign a letter pledging the Administration to make "adequate" direct loans (amount unspecified) through the Farmers < Home Administration and also to ease the terms under which the Government will guarantee repayment of $650 million in loans from commercial banks to farmers. Boren and his allies reluctantly accepted this as the most that could be achieved immediately. But when Boren took the actual letter to a meeting of all 47 Democratic Senators Thursday afternoon, they rejected it unanimously. The Democrats were incensed by a sentence in which Block called any additional extension of credit or loan guarantees to farmers "unnecessary."