Blossoms, Budget & Blizzard

More than 600,000 tourists swarmed into Washington to enjoy the esthetic pleasures of the Japanese cherry blossoms. Massachusetts' Republican Representative Edith Nourse Rogers, moved by the daffodils on her House Restaurant table, arose to exclaim: "They were like sunshine, and gladdened our eyes and hearts." The President of the U.S. could almost picture the jonquils around his Gettysburg farmhouse as he led the exodus for the three-day weekend that was the spring standard for official Washington.

On one day the Capitol grounds were redolent with the chicken being barbecued for Congressmen (among the munchers for the promotional stunt celebrating "Chicken Day" were Speaker Sam Rayburn and House Minority Leader Joe Martin). But Washington's air was not filled with the fragrance of flowers, or even of barbecued chicken. It was filled with the brickbats and broken glass that blew from the great budget fracas.

Last week the budget storm was sweeping over everything in sight. The Administration seemed more than willing to put off decisions until after Easter, and the 85th Congress had enacted virtually no major legislation--but the House of Representatives had already worked its budget-whacking way well past the $1 billion mark (about half of which, admittedly, would have to be restored with supplemental appropriations before the end of the fiscal year). From extermination of the South's fire-ant plague to slum clearance, all legislative eggs were candled by one light: What will it cost?

Off with the Derby. Commerce Secretary Sinclair Weeks began his week by faring forth to battle the budget cutters. Weeks practically dared the House to trim more than $50 million from his budget. Result: the House lopped off $217 million, a whopping 25%. President Eisenhower wrote the House Appropriations Committee expressing "deep concern" about proposed cuts in funds for the U.S. Information Agency. Result: the committee cut USIA by $37.9 million, or 26%. Hardly pausing for breath, it knocked $47.3 million, or 21%, from State Department budget requests. Army Secretary Wilber Brucker invited a group of Congressmen to witness at Army expense a military demonstration at Fort Knox, Ky. Brucker also passed the word that the affair would be held the same weekend as the nearby Kentucky Derby. Result: Brucker hastily canceled the invitation after a budget-cutting howl that could be heard all the way to Churchill Downs.

The fact was that Washington, cherry blossoms or no, was shivering in a political blizzard that even the political weathermen could not quite understand. Treasury Secretary George Humphrey's warnings against big budgets (TIME, Jan. 28 et seq.) had whistled up a cold front of economy talk all across the nation. Just at the time when the Administration was trying to get appropriations out of Congress, the cold front clashed with the warm winds of modern Republicanism. Principal orphans of the storm were the Eisenhower Republicans in Cabinet, House and Senate. The principal happy onlookers, snug and comfortable in Taftite redoubts, were G.O.P. conservatives of the stripe of California's William Fife Knowland and New Hampshire's Styles Bridges, whose case had been better sold by Humphrey than ever before.

Off with the Tax. Quickest to harness the winds to political advantage were the Democrats: with economy in the air, the idea of tax cuts seemed appealing beyond endurance. House Speaker Sam Rayburn, after matching barometers with Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, announced that prospects looked good for a tax cut along about Jan. 1. For only $1 billion or so, Rayburn's Democrats thought, they could either increase individual exemptions by $100 or offer a personal tax credit of $20.

With his Treasury Secretary still an unchallenged hero to the budget cutters (see box, p. 24), even President Eisenhower seemed at times to be wandering. Fortnight ago he finally spoke up firmly in defense of the budget, but G.O.P. leaders on Capitol Hill were spreading the word that he was reconciled to a cut of well over $1 billion. The Administration's leadership had already confused one House Republican to the point of complaining: "The President lays out his program and lets it sit there. Sometimes, with one Cabinet member saying one thing and still another Cabinet member saying another, we can't even find out what the President's program is."

The President does know what his program is, and believes that his budget is necessary to ensure the success of that program. In the booming 1950s, he told his press conference, the U.S. cannot limit itself "to the governmental processes that were applicable in the 1890s." Yet it is equally true that unless Ike shakes off spring's euphoria to fight resolutely for his budget, the modern Republican program he plans for the U.S. might be sacrificed for a political tax cut.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.