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.”

By Friday night the battle had degenerated into a raw test of partisan will and endurance. Dole got Block to sign a new letter without the wording that had enraged the Democrats, and thought he had a Democratic agreement to call off the filibuster so Meese could be confirmed. But the Democrats then pressed for a series of commitments guaranteeing that they could get a vote this week on a plan for a much bigger bailout of debt-burdened farmers than anything the Administration will accept. The Republicans saw the maneuver as a direct challenge to Dole. Declared G.O.P. Whip Alan Simpson: “I won’t see this leadership destroyed.”

The dispute came to a head in a dramatic midnight clash between Dole and former Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd of West Virginia. “It now appears that the period for fruitful negotiations is coming to an end,” complained the frustrated Dole. He warned his colleagues to rest well on the weekend “because starting next Monday, we are going to stay all night.” Snapped Byrd: “Apparently there is a decision now that we are going to play hardball and that we will just stay with Mr. Meese and let the farmers go to hell . . . I am in my 19th year here on this floor, and I have never seen anything like this.”

Dole called a Saturday session in a last try to break the impasse. The effort succeeded. The farm-state Senators agreed to stop the filibuster; Dole agreed to let them introduce a maximum of four amendments this week to an unrelated bill in an effort to get more farm help than the Administration has been willing to grant. After that, the Senators voted 63 to 31 to confirm Meese as Attorney General.

The tussle was an ominous prelude to the longer struggles coming up over the budget. The Republican strategy has been to get a package of drastic spending cuts through the Senate before the Democrats in the House can come up with an alternative budget plan. That would improve chances of picking up needed votes from conservative House Democrats. But no one imagines that all 53 Republican Senators can be lined up behind a budget. Some Democratic votes will be needed in the Senate too, and the charges of bad faith inspired by the farm-loan fight will scarcely be a help in getting them.

Domenici plans to outline options for slashing spending by $50 billion to Republican Senators on Tuesday and seek a general agreement that could be presented to the President by the end of this week. If the White House approves, or at least holds still, the Budget Committee could start drafting a full resolution next week. But that is a highly optimistic timetable. One key observer fears that Domenici might not have enough G.O.P. votes to push $50 billion in cuts through his own Budget Committee. White House approval is very far from certain too.

The big hangup is military spending. Many Republicans are reluctant to commit themselves to slashes in domestic outlays that would offend constituents unless Pentagon expenditures are also scaled down. But the White House so far refuses to discuss reducing its proposed increase of roughly 6% in excess of inflation.

Some powerful voices have called on Congress for budgetary speed. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker warned that so long as $200 billion deficits are not reduced, the U.S. economic expansion is “living on borrowed money and time.” He made it clear to the Senate Banking Committee Wednesday that the Fed will not increase the nation’s money supply rapidly enough to make it easy for the Government to borrow enough to cover the deficits. Quite the contrary, said Volcker, the board is already reining back on an expansion of the money supply it began last fall to pull the economy out of a brief slowdown. The Commerce Department announced last week that the economy had bounced back and then some, growing at an annual rate of 4.9% in the final quarter of last year, much faster than anticipated.

At a news conference, Reagan called spending cuts an “economic necessity” if robust growth is to continue. He gave a high priority to “a sweeping program of tax simplification and reform,” calling it “historic legislation (that) can and should be passed this year.” Although quibbling with some of its provisions, he spoke favorably of a Treasury plan that would cut income tax rates sharply for both individuals and businesses, while forcing companies that “are not now paying taxes at all, or paying very little” to cough up “their fair share.”

$ A few hours before Reagan’s news conference, however, Treasury Secretary James Baker told the House Budget Committee that if Congress passed the Treasury plan intact, the President would not sign it. His remarks indicated that the White House is still unclear as to what it wants.

The Administration did pull its act together in one respect last week. Reagan admitted that Budget Director David Stockman had been “blowing his cool” in painfully candid testimony to Congress about military pensions and loans to farmers and college students. Earlier, White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan had called in Stockman to tell him that his gibes were upsetting the President and advised him to pipe down. The Budget Director obediently offered only relatively bland testimony last week, but that did not quiet his critics. When he was briefly hospitalized after feeling faint at a dinner party, a cruel gag promptly circulated on Capitol Hill that he had actually undergone a transplant to give him a human heart.