'Mr. President, We're in Trouble'

After conducting a briefing for congressional leaders last month on his fiscal 1977 budget, a concerned President Gerald Ford took aside a number of House Republican leaders. "We've got to win the override," the President said quietly.

Everyone in the group knew what Ford meant: the President had vetoed the $45 billion omnibus appropriation for health, welfare and labor programs late last year. Now the Democrats were rallying in an attempt to override the veto, and Ford was extremely anxious to foil them. The unwieldy bill contained $916 million for programs, mainly health, that the President felt the nation could not readily afford. House Minority Leader John Rhodes, Minority Whip Robert Michel, Congressmen John Anderson from Illinois and Barber Conable from New York knew that the President looked upon the vote as a key test of his ability to defend his tight budget. Not incidentally, a victory would give his campaign against Conservative Ronald Reagan a flying start by showing that Ford was not only a conservative but a leader who could make things happen--and keep them from happening.

Startling Defeat. Again the President spoke in congressional shorthand: "Sustain the veto, and well come in 300 million over." Translation: if we can beat the Democrats' attempt to overturn my veto, I'll settle for a bill that is $300 million above what I originally wanted. In reply, the Republican leaders offered Ford their optimistic assurance that the veto would be sustained. "We're not going to have any trouble," said one.

As it turned out last week, Ford and the Republicans had a great deal of trouble. Not only was the President's veto overridden by a substantial margin--310 to 113--but 49 of the 144 Republican Congressmen voted with the Democrats. The startling defeat for Ford set the mood and the stage for what promises to be a congressional session full of tough, partisan politics and bitter confrontations with the White House. Hoping to help themselves--as well as their presidential candidate, whoever he may be--in the upcoming elections, the Democrats will be out to portray Ford as the great naysayer while they fight for social programs and more jobs. President Ford, on the other hand, will try to depict the Democrats as spendthrifts whose fiscal irresponsibility will increase inflation.

The measure that became the first testing ground in the election-year battle between the White House and Capitol Hill was the main appropriations bill for Labor and HEW. In one way or another, its varied programs touched the lives of millions of Americans: medical research conducted by the National Institutes of Health; community health services; drug treatment and prevention projects; Head Start, which gives special treatment to poor preschoolers; plans to retrain workers for better jobs. When Ford vetoed the bill on Dec. 19, the Democratic leaders in the House shrewdly decided against any immediate attempt to override. Instead, they mounted their effective attack on wobbly Republicans and conservative Democrats during the long recess. "We unleashed everybody," says Majority Leader Thomas P. ("Tip") O'Neill. "Every labor organization, every education organization, every health organization with clout."

Despite the Republican leadership's earlier confidence, Whip Michel began to sense five days before the vote that something was going terribly wrong. Too many Republicans were refusing to commit themselves to Ford. "Mr. President," reported an unhappy Michel, "we're in trouble."

Michel suggested a new tactic: persuading wavering Congressmen to vote against the override on the understanding that Ford would settle for a bill that went not $300 million but $450 million over his original limit. The President agreed. "Bob," he said, "I've got to rely on you. You know the feel [on the Hill]." But even that ploy did not help. Too many Republicans up for election in November found they could not vote against help for preschoolers or research on cancer. The final vote surprised even the Democrats, who had been scrambling for days on the theory that the tally would be close and might well go against them.

Counting Chickens. "Let's face it," said one presidential aide, "we were overconfident. We counted some chickens that didn't hatch." Added a White House economist: "It augurs badly for the political fate of the President's budget." Reflecting on the surprising vote, James Lynn, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, declared critically of Congress: "They've only been in session for six days, and they've already added $1 billion to the budget. With this kind of performance, it's going to be a long year."

It certainly is. The next day the Senate overrode the President's veto of the Labor-HEW bill, 70 to 24; 17 Republicans voted with the Democrats. Last week the House voted, 323 to 99, to prevent the President from using any funds in the $112.3 billion military appropriations bill to help anti-Communist forces in Angola. Despite Ford's expression of "grave concern over the international consequences" of banning the aid, 72 Republicans sided with the Democrats as the House followed the lead of the Senate in denying the aid to that African nation.

But the state of the economy, not foreign policy, will be the major issue in the election year, and two days after overriding his veto, the House handed Ford another resounding defeat on domestic policy. By a vote of 321 to 80, with 62 Republicans joining the Democrats, the House passed a $6.2 billion public works employment bill, which its backers claimed would create 600,000 jobs. The measure, previously approved by the Senate, was strongly opposed by Ford as uneconomical. He will almost certainly turn down the bill, and Congress is likely to defy him again by overriding the veto.

Buoyed by their successes of last week, the Democratic leaders in the House not only will be fighting hard to create more jobs and prevent the President from cutting back existing programs, but will be advancing bills of their own. One example: a national health bill.

Another Marriage. Ironically, a major obstacle for the House Democrats may be the Democratic leadership in the Senate, which is still cautious and accommodating. Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, who doubts that he has the votes to override many of Ford's vetoes, expects to work out "more cooperation with the President and maybe a return to the 'marriage' [with Congress] he talked about at the start. I don't think there will be too much new legislation. I must point out that I'm for national health insurance, but I don't believe in fooling people. It would be extremely difficult if not impossible to get passed."

Democratic activists in the Senate, however, are becoming increasingly eager to carry the fight to Ford. Among them is Senator Edward Kennedy, who says "I'm ready now" to fight for a comprehensive health insurance plan, long one of his major concerns. Kennedy also finds his colleagues eager to push for legislation dealing with the cities, the economy, energy and tax reform.

As it is shaping up, the strategy of the Democratic leaders in the House is to enact liberal legislation and lay it on the doorstep of the Senate. There, the House leaders hope, Democrats like Senator Kennedy, spurred on by the press and public opinion, will get the bills through. Then they would land on the desk in the Oval Office, where President Ford would face a dilemma. If he approves bills that break his budget, he risks attack from Ronald Reagan, his conservative Republican rival. But if he wins the nomination by saying no to jobs and social programs, Jerry Ford may hobble his chances of being elected in November.

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