Gunfight at the Capitol Hill Corral

"There are two major groups of potential opponents who need to be assessed," Pollster Pat Caddell wrote last December, "the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. In many ways, the former may be more dangerous than the latter."

Jimmy Carter's favorite nose counter could hardly have been more correct. Last week the simmering dispute between the President and Capitol Hill broke into the open, with congressional members of Carter's own party leading the battle. Within three days Democrat-led committees in both chambers voted to load Administration proposals with more than $3.5 billion in extra money.

By doing so, the legislators were directly challenging Carter and imperiling his announced goal of a balanced budget by 1981. The President picked up the gauntlet at his news conference. In a five-minute opening statement, he politely but quite plainly threatened to veto bills that did not meet his standards of fiscal responsibility.

A particular sore point was Carter's original "hit list" of 32 water projects. The President compromised and restored 14 of the originally doomed projects. Then the House Public Works Appropriations Subcommittee restored 17 of the 18 projects still on Carter's list. (The lone loser: the $1 million Grove Lake, Kans., flood-control project.) Carter met three times with the subcommittee chairman, Alabama Congressman Tom Bevill, 56, with little result. The President then enlisted the aid of House Majority Leader Thomas ("Tip") O'Neill Jr., who was only able to persuade Bevill to cut small sums from five of the projects. Next O'Neill went to Texas' George Mahon, chairman of the full Appropriations Committee, which passes on Bevill's work. "Tip," said Mahon, "you're right--but there's nothing we can do about it. We don't have the votes." Last week Mahon's committee passed Bevill's bill without even the formality of a vote. Mourned O'Neill: "It's all a matter of party-line discipline--it's not here any more."

In the Senate, the $4.8 billion Farm Bill was the issue. During his campaign Carter had told Iowa farmers, "We will make sure that our support prices are at least equal to the cost of production." But growers called his proposed support prices--including wheat at $2.60 per bu. --inadequate and "cruel." Carter upped the prices (wheat went to $2.90). But both houses of Congress raised them higher still: the House committee put wheat at $3.00, the Senate at $3.10. Last week the Senate approved its more generous Farm Bill by a lopsided margin of 69 to 18--more than the two-thirds that would be necessary to override a presidential veto. Maine Senator Edmund Muskie complained that the bill would add $8 billion to the budget during the next four years.

Right and Duty. Congressional committees also approved a $61.3 billion appropriation for Labor and HEW that was $2.1 billion more than Carter had requested. Given these setbacks, Carter's press-conference response was a measured one. Said he: "I respect the Congress, and I will work day and night to reach an agreeable solution to these potential threats to harmony." But, he added, "I have to reserve the right and the duty to say no when spending is excessive."

There's the rub. Who is to say when spending is excessive? As Colorado's Democratic Senator Gary Hart put it, "The problem is Carter thinks he hears the American people saying, 'Spend less.' And we think we hear the American people saying, 'Give us what we want.' And we're both right."

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