THE CONGRESS Biting the Bullet

For most of his press conference last week, the President seemed unwontedly subdued, as if he had prepared himself with one Miltown too many. Then a newsman asked him about that vexed, vexatious tax bill, and Lyndon Johnson all at once was his old self again. For eight gesticulatory minutes--more than twice the time he devoted to the subject of peace talks--he laced into Capitol Hill economizers and urged Congressmen to "stand up like men" and vote, to "bite the bullet" no matter how much it hurt. Oddly enough, until he spoke, they had seemed ready to do just that.

Little Room. The principal roadblock, apart from popular feeling against tax boosts and congressional reluctance to raise the rates in an election year, has been the fiscal conservatives' demand for a substantial cutback in federal expenditures. With military spending still going up and the needs of the cities paramount in the minds of most liberals, there seemed little room for maneuver, even with a projected budget of $186 billion and a possible deficit of $25 billion (on top of a $24.6 billion deficit projected for this year). Massive cuts, liberals believed, would gut too many socially oriented programs that have already been pared to the bone.

There matters stood until last week, when the President met with House leaders and, with great reluctance, worked out an agreement for a slash of $4 billion in cash from the 1969 budget and a hefty cut of $18 billion in already promised, but not yet due allotments for future budgets. Both cutbacks were then ratified by the key House Appropriations Committee.

Wilbur Mills, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, along with Republican leaders, wanted even larger retrenchments: $6 billion in cash and $20 billion in promised money. Economizing on this scale, countered the President, "would really bring chaos to the Government"; at the angry meeting with House leaders, he had said that the country in fact needed a budget of more than $200 billion. "I am the coach," he protested at one point--referring to Mills, who has replaced Senator William Fulbright as his chief nemesis--"and I send in signals for a pass to my quarterback and he runs a play off tackle."

Decision Week. In fact, a compromise had seemed imminent until the President's news-conference tirade. "The President can propose," he said, "but the Congress must dispose. I proposed a budget. If they don't like that budget, then stand up like men and answer the roll call and cut what they think ought to be cut. Then the President will exercise his responsibility of approving it or rejecting it and vetoing it." He went so far as to accuse conservatives of holding up the tax bill so that they could "blackmail" him into approving cuts--almost all of which would come out of his cherished Great Society programs. A President had not used such strong tones with Congress since 1944, when F.D.R. vetoed another tax bill* and Alben Barkley, tears streaming down his face, resigned as Senate majority leader to protest the President's words--only to be re-elected unanimously the next day.

Some resolution is expected this week when Mill's Ways and Means Committee--the determining voice on any tax measure--meets to consider the matter. Angry as they are, most Congressmen now realize, like it or not, that higher taxes are mandatory if the economy and the dollar are to be saved. But like it or not, Lyndon Johnson also will have to bite the bullet and accept cutbacks that will maim some of his proudest programs.

* "It is not a tax bill," said Roosevelt, "but a tax-relief bill, not for the needy but the greedy. . ." Beyond that, he said, Congress had been sloppy in writing the bill, "using language which not even a dictionary or a thesaurus can make clear."

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