Checking the Balances

By Hugh Sidey

The dark blue Lincolns cruise the Washington streets from sunup to midnight. Inside are shadowy predators of the political jungle curled around their cellular phones, eyes alight and voices urgent, positioning themselves in the great power struggle that has now been joined.

Big Labor and Big Business and Big Education and Big Government are all jittery. "There are for the time being power vacuums at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue," says Oklahoma's James Jones, chairman of the House Budget Committee in the expiring 98th Congress. He is debating whether to seek an unprecedented third term in that critical but trying position.

The White House is deceptively calm, its boss off on his California ranch gathering strength by clearing brush and repairing fences. Nobody will know for certain the shape of his trillion-dollar budget until he hears the options and decides. Predicting Reagan's course is hazardous.

Each rumor sends a shock wave through Washington. Veterans' groups protested when stories appeared suggesting that their hospital benefits would be cut. Government employees cried out when it was reported that their pension increases would be modified downward. Farm lobbies screamed over the possibility that subsidies would be hacked. Education groups rallied against the hint that Reagan would try again to eliminate the Department of Education. "The best thing to do," declared a member of the Business Roundtable, "is pull up a chair and watch the poker game." It is some game.

On the Hill the word went out from influential young Democrats, disillusioned by the massive defeat of their party, that Speaker Tip O'Neill would be little more than a ceremonial figure in the coming struggles. "His practical power days are over," said one. But the problem remains: Who leads the Democrats and where?

"It's all negative," says one of David Stockman's men down at OMB. "The Democrats are all fighting to avoid change. They cannot get increases in funds, so they are all battling to block the cuts proposed. We have a system for inertia." That may not all be bad for now.

James Madison, who did so much to write into our Government its elaborate system of checks and balances, would have managed a smile. "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition," he wrote in 1788. "In framing a Government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the Government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself."

Madison never envisioned what we have today; thousands of well-financed special interests contending with each other and the Government while the nation watches through the media. But he knew that some sort of power balance was necessary to preserve "the rights of the people."

There is no consensus among business leaders on how to reform taxes. There is no unity among labor barons on how to deal with Reagan. The President's Cabinet is split on policy, both domestic and foreign.

The founding fathers granted the President a little edge, something Alexander Hamilton called "the vigor of the executive authority." The capital now awaits the exercise of that authority. Reagan is the only person right now who can set an agenda, who can define national priorities and avoid a Government gridlock that is too near to dismiss. "There is a crisis," says Jim Jones. "Reagan has got to define that crisis for the nation." Reagan spent most of the campaign painting a picture of national wellbeing, so these next weeks will require a large measure of tact and political suppleness. If he succeeds, he will have mastered Mr. Madison's system of checks and balances.