Posturing, Not Legislating

By Ed Magnuson

Congress puts vote getting above problem solving

The Democrats did it three weeks ago in San Francisco. The Republicans will do it in Dallas in two weeks. And during the interval, members of both parties in Congress are doing the same thing. Playing politics. With a vengeance. Even a Medici might marvel at the maneuvering on Capitol Hill, designed to take partisan advantage of every issue and to dazzle voters with a wondrous array of illusions and images. "Everyone is posturing," protests Democratic Congressman Leon Panetta of California. In the meantime, the legislators are willing to let the nation's urgent business be ignored.

One obvious tactic has been for each party to try to blunt any issue on which the other seems to hold an advantage. The Republicans, for example, know that most elderly people tend to have more confidence in the Democrats as protectors of their Social Security and other retirement benefits. Thus President Reagan announced at his July 24 press conference that he would ask Congress to pass legislation granting a cost of living adjustment (COLA) next year to Social Security beneficiaries even if inflation falls below 3%, which now seems possible. He did so although the bipartisan compromise package passed in 1983 by Congress to keep the program solvent stated that no COLA should be made if inflation is 2.9% or lower. Reagan lavishly praised the compromise package last year--and cavalierly broke its spirit last month. Since the COLA could cost up to $5 billion and will require a small payroll-tax hike, the proposal also violates Reagan's pledges to cut costs and avoid tax increases.

No matter, the Republicans argue. If Reagan had not suggested the adjustment for next year, Democrats would have led a move in Congress to pass such a bill this fall. The President would then have faced the choice of seeming to follow the Democrats' lead or casting a veto that would anger older voters shortly before the November election. "It was going to happen anyway," insists Republican Senator Robert Dole. "Now, politically, the President comes out ahead." Still, contends a House Republican leader, "it was a dumb move. He shouldn't have done it." It sends the wrong signal, the Republican explained, about the party's intentions to hold down Government spending.

The Democrats, too, are playing the game. They are acutely aware that their previous votes against a constitutional amendment to permit spoken prayers in public schools hurt them among Fundamentalist religious groups, particularly in the South, where the presidential election could be decided. Thus when Senate Republicans proposed a bill that would permit high school students to hold religious meetings before or after normal class hours if other student groups were granted similar use of school facilities, the Democrats voted overwhelmingly for it (see box). They were also quick to approve a House Republican proposal to require schools to permit "silent prayer" by students. Since such prayer cannot be constitutionally banned, or even detected in many cases, the legislation changes nothing. But it allowed Democrats to claim, accurately, that they had voted for prayer in schools. "The public doesn't care about the nuances of what type of equal access or school prayer we voted for," contends Democratic Congressman Tony Coelho of California. "On any issue, it's important to take the sting out of it."

Even the urgent need to tackle the immense budget deficits is being overshadowed by symbolic strutting. The President and his party colleagues, authors of the biggest deficits in U.S. history, are touting a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget. Reagan recently revived the proposal after a two-year lapse, and a group of Republicans last week challenged the Democrats to permit the full House to vote on the amendment. The sponsors, however, were utterly at a loss to explain how the amendment would actually produce a no-deficit budget next year (Reagan's own proposals project a $180.4 billion deficit for 1985), except by instilling a somewhat mystical "discipline." Nor did Reagan clear the air much at week's end when he told his radio audience that he would veto any bill aimed at raising personal tax rates.

There is certainly merit in Reagan's argument that previous Democratic Administrations have created the costly entitlement programs that have contributed to the deficit. Yet, despite his 1981 promise to balance the budget within two years, Reagan has sent Congress three budgets so out of balance that not one Republican legislator has been willing to introduce them in committees. In the end, Reagan coaxed Congress to give him much of what he wanted, mainly in tax cuts and military-spending increases, but the debt racked up during his short tenure is fast approaching that of all previous Administrations combined. For a President to ask for a constitutional amendment to require him to do something he has not yet been willing to do, argues Democratic Congressman David Obey of Wisconsin, "is just another manifestation of hypocrisy."

Democrats know, however, that Reagan has them on the defensive and are ready to join the game, even to turn it deftly against the President. House Speaker Tip O'Neill tipped off the strategy by declaring last week, "Any day the President wants to send up a balanced budget, I guarantee I will get it on the floor within 48 hours." Democratic Congressman James Jones of Oklahoma, chairman of the House Budget Committee, introduced a bill that would require the President to submit a balanced budget by Oct. 1 of each year, the start of the Government's fiscal year. By no coincidence, that is just before the November balloting. The President would have to pinpoint the programs he would cut or the revenues he would raise to avoid a deficit.

In reality, neither Republicans nor Democrats expect to get these compulsory budget-balancing measures passed. Their only purpose is to fog the deficit issue in voters' minds, thus obscuring which party is responsible for what.

Despite the politics-above-all mood, even many Republicans deserted the White House in its attempt to bring Anne Burford, the former Environmental Protection Agency administrator, back into Government as chairman of the National Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmosphere. Forced to resign after charges of mismanagement and fostering a cozy relationship between her agency and polluters, she turned off many of her supporters by belittling her new job as a "nothing-burger." The Republican Senate joined the Democratic House in passing non-binding resolutions asking Reagan to withdraw the appointment, which did not require Senate confirmation. Last week Burford decided not to take the un-salaried post, claiming that the "unwarranted furor" had done "grave disservice to your outstanding record on the environment." There was relief in the White House and in the Reagan-Bush re-election committee at her action, although one presidential adviser complained, "We hung with her all this time, trying to do something nice for her, and then she turns around and slaps us in the face."

In another diversion from more pressing matters, the Senate prepared to debate a meddlesome measure introduced by New York Republican Senator Alfonse D'Amato that would rename the site of the Soviet embassy in Washington Andrei Sakharov Plaza. While attempts to keep pressure on the Soviets to free the ailing dissident from confinement are laudable, even the State Department saw this one as a dubious and ill-conceived political ploy. State Department Spokesman Joseph Reap said the measure, which seems to have broad congressional support, might violate international agreements on protecting the dignity of foreign missions, lead to Soviet retaliation and prove counterproductive in freeing Sakharov. Said a disgusted U.S. diplomat of Congress: "Somebody ought to go up there and put a lock on that place."

Unfortunately, amid all the political partisanship and posing, the serious matter of just how to finance the Government for the current fiscal year got scant attention. Another victim of the pressures may be one of the most important reforms undertaken by any recent Congress: the Simpson-Mazzoli bill, which would try to bring some sense to immigration policies. Passed in both houses, but in different forms, it would grant amnesty to illegal aliens who can prove longtime residency in the U.S., and would apply penalties against employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens in the future. Mexican Americans in particular oppose the bill on the ground that employers, fearing fines or even jail, will refuse to hire all Hispanics, including American citizens.

Democratic Candidate Walter Mondale has promised to try to kill the bill. Reagan has said he finds the version passed by the House unacceptable because it includes an expensive, unlimited pledge by the Federal Government to reimburse states for the cost of the reforms. He told Republican Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming that a flat $4 billion lump-sum grant might get his approval. "You give me that," Reagan told Simpson. "That can be an acceptable bill." The delighted Simpson passed this news to Speaker O'Neill, who replied, "Send the damn thing over. We'll go to conference." Despite the obituaries, the bill was thus not yet dead, but it was not healthy either. Only a starkly simple political reality had jeopardized the long-awaited attempt to do something about America's chaotic situation along the Mexican border: each party figures it had better win Texas if it is to have a good chance of winning the presidency in November; 20% of all Texans have Hispanic surnames. --By Ed Magnuson.

Reported by Laurence I. Barrett and Neil MacNeil/ Washington

With reporting by Laurence I. Barrett, Neil MacNeil