The Presidency

By Hugh Sidey

The Department of Agriculture put out a little note last week reporting that most American farmers had, one way or another, found new financing and were busy in their fields planting another crop.

That does not mean that U.S. agriculture is out of crisis. But the new figures show that about 95% of the 2.4 million farmers are still in business. Last March, when Ronald Reagan refused to open up the federal treasury for new credit, some critics predicted that a fourth of the debt-ridden farmers could go under for lack of loans. It appears the Cassandras were wrong. And that Reagan was right to say no.

Another President who delivered an equally big and incendiary no a few years back was also right. Jerry Ford in 1975 refused to use federal credit to help lift New York out of its fiscal mess until the city took its own action. The New York Daily News headline for that rebuff is famous: FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD. New York did not drop dead. Instead it got mad, went to work and devised its own rescue, which a few weeks ago prompted Mayor Ed Koch to crow about New York's financial condition: "We are healthier than any other city in the country." Few New Yorkers seemed to remember that one of the reasons for the rebound was Jerry Ford's firm no. Such are the rewards of refusal.

Harry Truman understood all this, explaining that his job was to "persuade people to do what they ought to do -- and which they sometimes don't do -- without being persuaded." But not even Truman imagined that so much of the presidency one day would be devoted to saying no so many times.

Indeed, the ritual of the graceful no is Ronald Reagan's virtuosity. He fired the air-traffic controllers on a beautifully sunny morning in the Rose Garden with a calm and injured tone in his voice. That action as much as any other in his first term established him as a leader to be reckoned with. To reduce the federal deficit, Reagan cut back funds for cities and states. Mayors and Governors denounced him at their conventions but also streamlined their regimes. A surprising number of them now have balanced budgets. Of course, they still complain about Reagan.

A big part of the President's political ascendancy lay in sensing that Government needed to become a forum of denial. The late Dean Acheson defined it as the necessity of "administering scarcity." Joe Califano, who under Johnson and Carter helped design this huge Government, foresaw a time when the cost of programs would outstrip the nation's ability to pay for them. Learning to think small, Califano warned six years ago, could be a traumatic experience.

Reagan did not shy from the task. Indeed, he seemed to relish delivering the message. His greatest test, however, lies ahead. If his tax reform bill is any kind of true reform, it will be a chorus of nos for dozens, perhaps hundreds of entrenched special interests, few of whom are accustomed to the word.

The last time tax reform was seriously considered was by John Kennedy. He reasoned with remarkable candor that the rich, like himself, were avoiding taxes, the poor were not paying very much, and the middle class, which was doing most of the work in the country, was also shouldering most of the tax burden. Not fair, he declared, envisioning himself on a grand crusade for a new tax system.

Then Congressman Wilbur Mills, the capital's leading tax legislator, paid a visit to the White House. In a couple of leisurely circuits around the Rose Garden, Mills explained how many times Kennedy would have to say no and to whom. Kennedy's enthusiasm for tax reform waned. And in the end, his tax program centered on major tax cuts and very minor tax reforms.

How firmly Reagan says no, to whom he says it, how often he repeats it and how long he gets some fun out of being the messenger of such grim tidings could be the most important happening of his second term.