Jimmy Battles the Barons

Democrat Jimmy Carter and the Democratic Congress appear to be headed for collision. Chief issue: determined to balance the budget by the end of his first term, Carter, the fiscal conservative, is clipping away at congressional spending.

The more liberal Congress is on the verge of passing three bills that could exceed his spending plans by $3.5 billion--and he may well veto one or more of them. Paying no heed to the President's protest that various dams, canals and irrigation projects are too costly and environmentally damaging, the House restored 17 of the 18 projects on his final hit list; the Senate is expected to restore more than half. The White House seems to be virtually itching to veto the wasteful measure when it reaches Carter's desk. Says a presidential aide: "There's no way Congress can win on that one. Even if they should override him, he wins." Democratic Senator James Abourezk agrees because "the Congress is mistakenly held in such low regard by the public."

Carter's reaction to the other bills is less certain. He wants lower farm price supports than Congress: $2.90 per bu. of wheat, v. $3 voted by a House committee and $3.10 by the Senate. If the Senate levels prevail, a veto is possible, and it would probably not be overridden. The $61.3 billion labor and health, education and welfare bill, which provides $2.1 billion more than Carter wants to spend, is a closer call. If the President vetoes it, he will look like a flinthearted conservative to many liberals. The White House is divided over what to do. Issues Coordinator Stu Eizenstat is urging the President to sign the bill, but Bert Lance, the budget chief, is telling him to draw the line to help control inflation.

Rejecting these measures would bring still more trouble for other Carter proposals, notably his call for a consumer protection agency and registration of voters on Election Day; passage of both seems doubtful. Farther down the road, Congress could sabotage the foreign aid bill and a Panama Canal treaty. Last week the House Ways and Means Committee sliced up Carter's much heralded program to ease the fuel crisis, and that provoked the President to publicly criticize Congress (see ENERGY).

Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd complains that the President's energy program "was not thought out." He also feels that Carter states lofty goals, then fails to follow through; that he is trying too much without knowing enough. As Byrd told TIME Correspondent Neil MacNeil, "He's getting good on-the-job training, but he has so little experience that there may not be time to learn enough."

While Carter's energy program is certainly flawed, the prickly barons on the Hill are chipping away at it, not in accordance with any underlying scheme or philosophy, but simply in response to what they conceive to be popular or unpopular at home and the pressures of various interests. Members of Congress have complained that Carter is all style, little substance; now he presents substantive proposals, but some Democrats dislike them and leaders argue that he has sent Congress too many of them. At a White House meeting last week, House Speaker Tip O'Neill warned him: "Mr. President, you have given us about as much as we can digest. Tell us what your priorities are." Carter promised them a "must" list within a few days. Leaders told him that the one "must" on their own long--and inflationary--list is a big raise in the minimum wage. The President supports an increase from $2.30 to $2.50; Congress wants more.

O'Neill is struggling to avoid vetoes and to keep his often unleadable troops in line. He pleaded with a Democrat who wanted to break publicly with the President: "Don't do it. Don't go that road. You want an appointment with the President? I'll call him and you have an appointment in the morning. We're being treated better than we've been in our life." O'Neill and other leaders are trying to educate Carter in the ways of the Hill: whom to see to formulate programs and get them enacted. They have also demonstrated that they can corral votes for a Carter program when they have to. Last week House Democrats brushed aside Republican amendments and passed the repeal of the Hatch Act, which forbids political activity by federal civil service employees.

To soothe relations, Carter invited groups of Congressmen to half a dozen White House meetings last week. He listened attentively to their pleas, and that quiet Southern courtesy was sometimes mistaken for assent. "You hear what you want to hear," notes a White House aide. "When it comes to the President, there's a special mystique. If he listens, one is inclined to think, 'He must agree with me.' " Some who think that way stand to be disappointed.

Adding to congressional doubts were U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young's continued, compulsive indiscretions. Young met for a half-hour with Carter, who did not reprimand him. The President pointed out to Cabinet members that Young will be a "hero to the Third World." Some of Young's aides urge him to "think black" on all issues. The question is: Does he think enough? After he called former Presidents Ford and Nixon "racists" in a Playboy interview, he extended the epithet posthumously to Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Abe Lincoln. Later he explained that by "racism" he meant lack of sensitivity to other cultures, adding that "I, too, am a racist." With such definitions, language loses all meaning.

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