The Do-Nothingest

Ordinarily, the Easter season is a time for the members of the U.S. Congress to declare a recess, go back home, mingle with the voters, and talk about their legislative record so far. This year they will go home, but they will not have much to talk about: the 88th Congress in its second session is perhaps the do-nothingest in history.

In three months Congress has filibustered, fulminated, frittered around--and passed precisely one bill that might by any stretch of the imagination be considered major. That was a four-year extension of the military draft, which cleared both houses with little debate and drew a total of only three adverse votes.

But at last week's end almost all of President Kennedy's pet legislative proposals--Medicare, tax reduction, medical schools, etc.--were still snagged in congressional committees. The Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Virginia's Senator Harry Byrd, has not even started hearings on the Kennedy tax program--and Byrd's hearings, when they do begin, are likely to last for a good long while.

As a general rule, at least a couple of appropriation bills have been cleared by April. In 1960 eight appropriation bills received House approval; in 1961 there were two, and last year three. This year's score: none. In fact, as of last week, not one of the dozen appropriation bills submitted had even emerged from the House Appropriations Committee.

With overwhelming Democratic majorities in both branches (67 to 33 in the Senate, 257 to 177 in the House), why all the delay in enacting the Democratic Administration's programs? Truth is, a lot of congressional Democrats are no more enthusiastic than Republicans about those programs. For example, at a White House meeting Democratic leaders were urged to bring the youth employment bill to a floor vote--if only as something to put in the Easter basket. The leaders demurred, arguing that they could not count on their party's rank and file to vote favorably. A defeat now, they insisted, would make everything even tougher for the Administration later on.

Still, the Kennedy Administration avows hopefulness. Says Larry O'Brien, the White House's top liaison man to Capitol Hill: "The Congress will get moving. We are going to have a good record." At the present rate of action, that may turn out to be the most bullish statement of the year.

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