Budget maneuvers:

...The Speaker was so pleased with going through these policy alternatives that during the first week of March he presented the exercise to the Democratic Policy Steering Committee and then to all Committee Chairmen (with some membership overlap...

...Those who still did not participate were called by the Speaker or the leadership and urged to do so...

...In defense spending, when given the option of seven, five, or three percent real growth (after inflation), 43.5 percent of the members chose five and 40.9 percent chose three...

...Reagan's apparent inflexibility does not augur well for an end to them...

...He might well be frustrated because the adoption of the resolution reflects a resurgence of the Democrats as the effective majority after two years of the House's being controlled by the Republican-conservative coalition-whose budget resolutions provided for massive increases in defense and for drastic cuts in taxes and domestic programs...

...The leadership kept major factions talking, cajoled and jawboned when necessary, used the Democratic Caucus effectively, maintained a very accurate tab on every member, and outmaneuvered the Republicans to a hard-earned victory...

...By generating a dialogue over the available policy alternatives the exercise was able to give House Democrats a good idea of what it's like to be a member of the Budget Committee...

...Regional whip meetings were called where at least one member of the Budget Committee was present to respond to the many questions that arose as other members went through the exercise...

...Concerned with expediting the process, the Budget Committee announced in January that the budget resolution would be presented to the House during the week of March 21 -and indeed it was...

...The resulting compromise allowed for a total of $17 billion in outlays for FY 1984 for both short-run emergency assistance programs and longer range research and development, infrastructure, and human resource programs...

...The same trade-off situation was demonstrated, only with Mr...

...The Democratic ground rules for the debate allowed for only one alternative, and that was to be proposed by the Republicans...

...Thirty-six Democrats voted against it, 22 of whom were Boll Weevils...

...It also got the Democratic leadership further involved in and committed to the budget process...

...Jones during committee caucus in drafting the Democratic budget...

...Reagan) or in defense (Mr...

...For instance, when challenged that his indefinite delay of the tax cut might not pass on the floor he would point out that 63 percent of the Democratic members chose outright repeal of the Administration's third-year tax cut, while an additional 34 percent would cap or reduce the third year...

...Reagan got everything else he asked for...

...The Budget Committee seized upon Stockman's example and constructed their own questionnaire for the Speaker...

...Accommodations that eventually appeared in the budget resolution's reconciliation and enforcement provisions appear to have been drafted to meet some of those complaints...

...Evidence of this- specifically, in the House's budget resolution-prompted President Reagan to declare that it would bring "joy to the Kremlin.'' Not that he expects Mr...

...The major problem for the Budget Committee was to accommodate both the desire for an as yet unspecified jobs program-considerably more extensive than the $4.95 billion bipartisan jobs package just enacted-and the reluctance to raise taxes...

...In addition, Chairman Jones continually caucused with the caucus of the twenty Democratic members of the Budget Committee (which you may recall had been decidedly strengthened by the leadership with eight members of proven loyalty...

...O'Neill...

...Those members who did not show were given the option of attending another series of meetings...

...The Speaker and the leadership kept every major actor busy bartering with the Budget Committee, so that every committee's basic needs would be accommodated whenever possible...

...Most of the Black Caucus members were persuaded that providing for their alternative budget would open up an opportunity for the Boll Weevil budget-with the possibility of its passage, given its high defense spending and lower taxes and domestic spending...

...Unprecedentedly high deficits were the only recourse-with a contingency tax allowed two years later if Mr...

...Four Republicans voted in favor of the Democratic budget-an indication of a much wider range of opinions among the Republicans as well, pointing to one of the reasons why the Republicans could not come up with their own proposal...

...savings for capital investment...

...the Committees then reported a resolution calling for four percent growth in military spending...

...The Democrats were eventually able to hammer out a measure providing for a deficit of $179.5 billion, $4.7 billion lower than the FY 1984 deficit under the president's budget, and keeping as well under the president's deficits for fiscal years 1985 and 1986...

...JEREMIAH BARUCH...

...Speaker O'Neill, Majority Leader Jim Wright, and Majority Whip Tom Foley were working in concert-no mean novelty in itself...

...Raising taxes was found to be the only recourse to get the deficit below that of the Reagan budget...

...Reagan's deficit came to have a powerful political life of its own...

...national security by allowing for only a 4 percent increase in defense spending when he asked for 10 percent growth-after inflation...

...Only Ways and Means Committee Chair Dan Rostenkowski was conspicious by his absence as a team player...

...Underpinning the entire exercise was the Budget Committee's consistent message that between today and 1988, the cyclical part of the deficit resulting from the recession will decline but the structural deficit rising from current tax and spending policies will grow to record levels, eating up U.S...

...Why they did not offer the Boll Weevil proposal is not clear...

...The questionnaire was preceded by a series of charts clearly showing that under present policy there was a projected deficit of over $300 billion...

...As a result, the Budget Committee significantly enhanced House receptivity to its proposals...

...Budget Committee Chair James Jones worked closely with almost the entire leadership...

...During Budget Committee markup repeated attempts by the Republican minority to amend the budget resolution were rebuffed by a cohesive Democratic majority...

...To Republican outcries against tax increases, the Democrats replied that even with the further increases proposed, there would still be a net tax cut of $58.2 billion in FY 1984, $72.8 billion in FY 1985, and $96.3 billion in FY 1986, as a result of the 1981 tax bill...

...O'Neill discovering in the exercise that to save social programs, cuts in defense spending became too deep to be politically acceptable...

...Andropov to be at the next Democratic fundraiser...

...In recent years the budget process has been plagued by delays...

...The survey of members' responses was skillfully used by Mr...

...Some very helpful tactics were in fact learned from the other side...

...The White House, it appears, would not release House Republicans from a commitment to a 10 percent growth in defense spending...

...In December the Budget Committee had begun discussions with committee chairmen disgruntled over the past use of the budget process-particularly the instructions allowing committees little flexibility in meeting spending limits...

...At every step of the way, the House Democratic leadership guided the first budget resolution, which sets spending and revenue targets as guidelines for congressional action in the coming months...

...This was accomplished at the political cost of revenue increases which, after the tax provisions in the bipartisan Social Security package, were gained by scaling back the tax cuts of 1981...

...The Democratic proposal calls for the passage of additional tax legislation providing for increases of $30 billion in FY in 1984, $40 billion in FY 1985 and $50 billion in FY 1986...

...The leadership had not only turned down a budget proposal attempted by the Black Caucus, but also that of the defense-minded, 38-member Conservative Democratic Forum-better known as the "Boll Weevils...

...This "Exercise in Hard Choices," as it was dubbed, was then presented to every Democratic member of the House under the aegis of the Speaker and the House Democratic leadership...

...By the end of the second week of March, 186 of the 268 Democrats in the House had gone through these series of budget choices and had completed and returned the exercise to the Budget Committee...

...The House adopted the Budget Committee's resolution on March 23 by a vote of 229 to 196...

...The balancing act between jobs and taxes became particularly acute in meetings with the Black Caucus -whose commitment to jobs was intense and in some cases unyielding...

...OMB Director David Stockman had faced a dilemma not unlike that facing the House Budget Committee-how to convince their respective leaders that the deficit could not be reduced solely from further cuts in social programs (Mr...

...The Republicans did not offer any alternative...

...Four of the 21 members were so bitter that they voted with the Republicans against the Democratic rule providing for the terms of the resolution's debate...

...A revealing budget picture had been drawn by a complete cross section of the party, apparently accurately reflecting all factions from right to left...

...In addition, the Appropriations Committee and others have blamed the budget process at least in part for the appropriations delays and last-minute confrontations with the president...

...rather the president feels that the House budget threatens U.S...

...Although the Committee had wished to focus on deficit reduction in the later years, getting below Mr...

...Stockman devised a questionnaire format for the president which demonstrated that his desire for large increases in defense spending could not be achieved without either (a) cuts in social programs and entitlements so deep that they were unacceptable even to Mr...

...Reagan (or were at least not politically feasible) or (b) increases in taxes (anathema...