Congress: Winning the Weevils

Texas’ Democratic Representative Omar Burleson picked up his ringing telephone. At the other end of the line was the President of the U.S.

Kennedy wanted to talk about an effort by House Republicans to tie any tax cut to specific federal budget levels. Speaking softly, Kennedy argued that the move was purely political and could be easily “circumvented.”

But, countered Burleson, many Democrats are disturbed about Govern ment extravagance. Replied Kennedy: “You’ve already cut more than $4 billion this year.” Maybe so, said Burleson, but he had computed that new programs urged by the Administration would cost $17 billion over five years. “That’s a figure I never heard,” said Kennedy. Within an hour, Kennedy called back. The budget bureau, he reported, did not agree with Burleson. Politely, the two chatted on about taxes and economy in government.

Timely Call. Why was President Kennedy so solicitous toward a relatively unknown Congressman? It happens that Burleson is leader of a loosely organized group of some 50 House Democrats, mainly Southern conservatives, who consider themselves an “economy bloc” —and are less reverently known as the “Boll Weevil Club.” With Republicans in near unanimous support of spending limitations offered by House G.O.P. Policy Chairman John Byrnes of Wisconsin, the Boll Weevils clearly held the decisive votes. Kennedy’s time on the telephone was well spent.

A week before the House was to vote, Burleson’s group had agreed to support Byrnes’s proposal that the second stage of the two-year tax cut could not go into effect unless the net national debt was below $303 billion next July 1. Kennedy took to nationwide radio and TV to plug the tax bill, and Republican Congressmen Byrnes and Tom Curtis of Missouri got free and equal air-waves time to answer. The whole issue then and there became more political than economic.

In a desperate effort to make his proposal more attractive to more Congressmen, Byrnes switched to a hastily drawn amendment that would have merely required the President to present a fiscal 1964 budget under $97 billion and a 1965 budget under $98 billion. But a budget is only a presidential estimate of federal costs, can always be revised, rarely is strictly adhered to by any Congress or any Administration.

After the presidential phone call, Burleson’s Boll Weevils met again, found they simply could not agree with Byrnes. “I don’t like to call the amendment a phony,” grumbled Burleson, “but it’s a subterfuge—it will not do what it purports to do.” Most of the Boll Weevils thereupon decided to vote against the Byrnes amendment.

Two Roads. In the debate on the House floor, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Wilbur Mills, who conferred with White House Aide Larry O’Brien while guiding the bill through the House, applied the clincher in a lectern-thumping, 35-minute speech. Never in his 25 years in Congress, he said, had he at first held so many reservations about any bill. But he had decided that it “is the most important legislation affecting the economic front here at home” that he had ever presented to the House.

Why? “There are two roads the Government can follow toward the achieve ment of a more prosperous economy. One of these is the tax reduction road. The other is the road of Government expenditure increases. This road leads to big Central Government. We should to the fullest extent possible call upon the private sector of our economy to give us the needed growth. This bill will remove the private sector from its high-tax straitjacket.” Mills predicted the $11 billion tax cut would increase the gross national product by $50 billion, actually yield $12 billion in added tax revenue “in the next few years.”

Mills dismissed the Byrnes amendment as merely adding “ifs,” “ands,” “buts,” and “maybes” to the bill on the basis of some “magic figures” on spending levels. However, Mills declared, both the Administration and each Congressman voting for tax reduction were committed to fighting unnecessary spending, since “we want it understood that we do not intend to try to go along both roads at the same time.” Mills added a reminder that sounded ominous for new Kennedy programs: “The President cannot spend a nickel unless Congress first authorizes it.”

At the end of the roll call on the amendment, the vote stood at a mere 186 to 185 against it. Then the clerk recalled those who had not responded —and one by one, the Weevils added to the Democratic margin. Where the G.O.P. had hoped to win some 40 Democratic votes, it got only 26. The amendment lost, 226 to 199, with only Wisconsin’s Alvin O’Konski breaking Republican ranks. Having made their economy pitch, 48 Republicans then joined 223 Democrats to vote for the bill. It passed, 271 to 155.

Buoyed by the victory, Administration leaders began to talk of ways to short-circuit Democratic Senator Harry Byrd, who is opposed to the bill. But Byrd will not be easy to bypass. For one thing, the tradition-minded Senate respects the prerogatives of its committee chairman. For another, even some liberal Democrats were not so sure they liked the bill. Wisconsin’s William Proxmire and Tennessee’s Albert Gore, a member of Byrd’s committee, indicated that they want to see the President’s budget in

January before they act on the tax cut bill. “I wish to kill it,” declared Gore. “The country cannot afford it. It would shock international confidence in the soundness of the dollar. It would increase the budget deficit, and we would have to borrow money to provide for the tax cuts. What sense does that make?”