Nonpolitical Best

President Eisenhower tore straight into the gathering battle over his newly offered balanced budget for 1960. Those who complained about the $77 billion budget, said Ike with rare punch at his press conference, are affected by "what might be called budgetary schizophrenia . . . They are on all sides of it."

"They" were the Democrats, heard loud and clear the moment the budget was dropped on Capitol Hill. From Senate

Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson came the bitter charge that Ike's was "a political issue for 1960 . . . a propaganda budget'' that cannot be balanced out of current income. From the House, Speaker Sam Rayburn allowed that Ike's request for an increase in gasoline taxes (from 3-c- to 4 1/2-c-) would get a "pretty cold reception." On the spend-and-spend side was a bulletin from the Democratic Advisory Council (Averell Harriman, Adlai Stevenson, Harry S. Truman, et al.) that damned the budget provisions as "weak and inadequate . . . Pocketbook before people . . . Close to being a fraud on the American people."

In reality, the Democrats were hurting because they knew that the President had grabbed a clear Republican tactical advantage by offering his balanced budget. If the Democrats fatten expenses with new appropriations -and Ike has already taken the trouble to hint that he will veto massive Democratic housing and airport legislation programs -they will be held accountable for the resulting deficit. The President has hinted at a tax cut next year if the line is held this year, and House Minority Leader Charlie Halleck has all but promised it; at a time when taxes are climbing at state and local levels, big-spending Democrats might be held responsible for knifing the cut. If the Democrats go along with the budget -and if it does balance as promised -the Republicans can claim the credit.

"The budget has been called political propaganda." the President told newsmen. "Now. I am not running for anything. I am just trying to do my best for America." And in trying to do his best, a lame-duck President -lately berated by Democratic critics for losing his grip and wanting to shrug off responsibilities on Congress (see The Congress) -had managed to frame the first big political issue of 1959 in his own terms.

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