When Push Comes to Shove

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Dole, who had worked intensely to hold his fellow Republicans in line by arguing that farmers would be helped best by smaller deficits and lower interest rates, was disgusted by his colleagues' action. "We haven't demonstrated in the Senate that we're prepared to face up to the deficit," he said. "We're adding a billion-plus dollars to our problem." But four of the Republican farm-state Senators who defected on the Senate votes are up for re- election in 1986. Iowa's Charles Grassley explained his dilemma: "I can't turn my back on the farmers without turning my back on seven out of ten people in my state whose jobs are directly related to agriculture." Dole himself did not really come off too badly from his early-season bruising on an unpopular issue. Said Montana Democrat John Melcher before the votes: "Politically, Dole needs to lose. He wins if he loses. He's in the difficult position of performing his duty as majority leader for the President."

The Democrats were delighted to have the Republicans cornered. They were so eager to get the farm legislation on the President's desk that the House Rules Committee scheduled an early vote to approve the Senate's version of the African relief bill without the usual House-Senate conference to resolve differences. Democrats hope to see Reagan in the awkward position of refusing to help farmers while lobbying in Congress for billions of dollars for the MX missile, aid to the contras in Nicaragua and military assistance to El Salvador.

But the White House was ready for a confrontation on farm assistance. The ! Administration argues that only 5% to 10% of the nation's farmers are under severe financial stress, and that the expensive bills passed by Congress will not help truly needy growers before spring planting season. Agriculture Secretary John Block told the House Budget Committee that the assistance "is not going to be of any real benefit. It's not good legislation, and we would not have time to make it work if it were."

With more special-interest budget fights coming up, some Administration officials would prefer a veto to a compromise. Said one White House assistant: "We're sending a very clear signal that we are going to be tough. It's a more important lesson than whether we save ourselves some extra money on the farmers."

At week's end the President met with Iowa Governor Terry Branstad and offered one small concession on the agriculture problem: a 30-day extension on sign- ups for price-support loans, deficiency payments and other farm programs. In other meetings with congressional leaders and Governors, the President was as unyielding as his staff. At a tense session with Dole and other Senate leaders, he held to the line he had taken earlier in the week with the National Governors' Association and refused to consider cutting defense or Social Security. "He didn't budge or blink in any of his meetings with the leadership," an aide reported. Remarked another White House official: "Now people are finally recognizing that they may have an immovable object before them."