THE 90th's MIXED BAG

Along with its legislative record, each Congress writes its own short hand label: innovative or standpat, Micawberish or Scroogian, spineless or rebellious. The 90th's first session fell somewhere in between on each count. It reflected rather too faithfully the national condition of confusion and contention over Viet Nam and the urban crisis. Unable to change the course of either, its mood was often one of angry frustration. The fight over the proposed tax increase and efforts to curb federal spending flavored the entire session, giving it a bitter taste--but no tax bill and only marginal savings. In the House, where dispute was hottest, the Republicans began by declaring that the old conservative coalition of the G.O.P. and Southern Democrats was dead, but the bloc won more crucial vote tests than in any of the past ten years. Nonetheless, the tradition-clogged congressional machinery managed to finance the war, keep the important domestic programs going, and pass some key legislation. The record on major issues:

Approved

> The largest increase in social security benefits in the program's 32-year history was passed, raising monthly benefits at least 13% with proportionately larger increases at the bottom of the scale. But the bill included restrictions on state welfare programs subsidized by Washington.

> Urban, educational and poverty programs were generally continued, with some additions. For the first time, the model-cities concept received operational funding, and a new federal rat-control program was approved.

> Federal jurisdiction over air pollution control was expanded and research efforts increased.

> The consular treaty with the Soviet Union, signed in 1964, and this year's multilateral pact regulating weaponry in space and national-sovereignty claims on celestial bodies, were both approved by the Senate.

>Meat-inspection standards for processors and distributors covered only by state law became more stringent. The statute requires states to raise their standards to at least the federal levels already applied to meat sent across state lines. Other consumer-oriented legislation extended the Flammable Fabrics Act to include all fabrics used in clothing and household furnishings and established a National Commission on Product Safety to study potentially hazardous merchandise.

>Educational broadcasting was given a boost with the establishment of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which will subsidize noncommercial broadcast operations. -- Terms for settling the national railroad strike were dictated after repeated extensions of the strike deadline failed to avert a stoppage.

Defeated or Deferred

>The tax increase--10% surcharge on personal and corporate income sought by the Administration --never cleared the House Ways and

Means Committee. After much wrangling, the White House promised to trim $2.6 billion from what would have been spent in the current fiscal year, and Congress excised another $1.8 billion. It is possible that some tax increase will be voted next year. -- Civil rights proposals ran aground for the second straight year. The Administration's omnibus measure proposed open housing, a ban on jury discrimination and protection for civil rights workers.

>Crime legislation, including control of firearms distribution, assistance to local law-enforcement agencies and regulation of wiretapping, could not survive disagreement over the measures' purposes and scope. A House bill to make interstate travel for the purpose of inciting riots a federal offense died in the Senate.

> A truth-in-lending bill, to help acquaint the public with the cost of credit, passed the Senate but was held up in the House.

> Trade expansion with Communist countries got nowhere, as Congress showed an upsurge of protectionist sentiment and even more hostility than usual to foreign aid. The aid bill was reduced $1 billion below the Administration request to $2.29 billion, its lowest level ever; renewal of the Export-Import Bank's charter and funding beyond June 30 was delayed; and there were a number of efforts to protect industries claiming injury by foreign competition.

> Congressional reorganization, designed to streamline procedure, reform the committee system and strengthen controls on lobbying, was approved in the Senate but not the House.

>Congressional ethics, limelighted by the House's exclusion of Adam Clayton Powell and the Senate's censure of Thomas Dodd, remained conspicuously unfinished business. Although both chambers now have special committees assigned to writing ethics codes, neither group brought one to the floor. J

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