Stalemate

The President and Congress staged their expected perfunctory battle over subsidies last week, sounding much like tired stock-company players in rehearsals of a well-worn play. Vetoing the antisubsidy bill exactly as he had eight months ago, the President did not even bother to devise new epithets. He repeated that the bill was "an inflation measure, a high-cost-of-living measure, a food-shortage measure." Half an hour after his message reached the Hill, the House failed, as anticipated, to override his veto. Each step of the routine was foreknown: passage, veto, veto upheld. The real fight was not yet.

That fight will come before June 30, when President Roosevelt's wartime price-control powers expire. These powers permit the President to pay subsidies for "strategic or critical materials." Opposition Congressmen say they meant magnesium, chrome and mica; the President has assumed, that they could also have meant butter, meat and milk. Congress may not take away the powers he has assumed -a two-thirds vote will be needed. But by simple majority vote, they may well reduce those powers. Already the Farm Bloc's Jesse P. Wolcott, Republican, of Port Huron, Mich., was loading up a blunderbuss to blow holes in price control.

Unlucky Seven. Subsidies and price control were two key planks in the President's seven-point 1944 legislative program. Congress has passed only one of the seven, the least important: mustering-out pay. The others have been pushed about, postponed or pigeonholed. One -the National Service Actis mackerel-dead. Anothercontract-renegotiation powers -was thrown around, then thrown into the tax bill.

The lastthe President's request for a "realistic [$10 billion] tax bill" - reached him from Congress last week. It had been chopped to $2.3 billion. The President this week vetoed it -first time in 600-odd vetoes that he has rejected a tax bill. One question may be a mystery forever: low far was Franklin Roosevelt emboldened by the popular reaction to Willkie's $16 billion plan to tax-till-it-hurts?

Now, after five months of wrangling, weaseling and soul-searching, Congress was back at the beginning. If the veto held, Congress could start writing a new, deeper-digging bill -or Congress could stand pat for no new taxes.

More than ever, both Congress and the President Lad become quick to challenge, slow to compromise.

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