Reagan's First Report Card

...But by April 28 the President could take advantage of his new aura to press his economic package in a televised speech to a joint session of Congress From an administrative standpoint, the President's handicap is not proving as significant as a similar situation would have been when Jimmy Carter was in the White House From the start of his Administration, Reagan has pursued much the same easy-going board chairman style that he developed during his eight-year stmt as Governor of California Hehasshownthathehasan instinct for sorting out those decisions which can be delegated and those vv hich should be his alone—reserving for himself only the most broad policy-making matters As a result, he has turned over the nitty-gritty, day-to-day running of the government (precisely what Carter took a deep interest in) to a trio of trusted assistants Chief of Staff James Baker 3d, Counselor Edwin Meese 3d and Deputy Chief of Staff Michael Deaver, who manages much of the President's time and activities So far the three men, two CalitorniansandaTexan, haveworked well together and moreor less as equals They hav e also demonstrated an ability to anticipate Reagan's needs and deANDRbw j Gla^s, a frequent New Leader contributor, is head of the Cox \enspaper\ bureau in Washington sires that has helped make the unique Presidential system work Since getting off the mark with a gracious Inaugural Address that ignored his political base on the hard Right, Reagan has repeatedly proven that his skill as a communicator continues to be the key to his public career His ability to charm and, as he is apt to put it, to "sell" an audience has been the foundation of his bnef Presidency Where other Presidents have relied on their brainpower, on their negotiating skills, on sheer hard work, on mastery of detail, or on their talent for judging character, Reagan's strong impulse has been to concentrate on taking his case to the mass audience What remains to be seen in the months to come is whether the amiable former actor can push his program through a deeply divided and often rancorous Congress In theory, Reagan's newly acquired mythic dimensions should be a major asset to him But there are those in his inner political circle who argue that he must personally enter the fray over the budget and the tax bill if his initiatives are to become law By moving quickly and aggressively in the early weeks of his presidency, Reagan has already virtually ensured that the Federal Budget for the fiscal year beginning next October 1 will be cut $40 bilhon-$50 billion below Carter's projections What is not at all certain, however, is where those cuts will come from and what kind of tax bill will emerge from Capitol Hill The Democrats, who control a majority in the House of Representatives, have marshalled their forces to a degree the Reagan White House until recently did not think possible Through an internal compromise, they have produced an alternative to the Reagan plan that calls for substantially less defense spending, more outlays for social welfare and less of a tax cut Their "bottom line" is essentially similar to that of the Reagan program, but the profile is a good deal different To date, Reagan's inclinations have been not to deal with the Democrats in a bid to strike a broader, bipartisan deal The President has not backed off an inch from his plan to slash individual income taxes across-the-board by 30 per cent over a four-year period And whenever aides have been tempted to strike a bargain that might bring some moderate Democrats behind his overall scheme Reagan has told them to stand fast With the program in trouble, though, the strategy may have to change The swing vote in the House, on which much depends, is the so-called "Redneck Caucus" of conservative Democrats Up to now, this group has found reasons to do business with the party insiders, who have guaranteed them a chance to increase defense outlays beyond the scope of the Democratic package As soon as Reagan's persistent cough gets better, he will probably be on the phone a good deal trying to woo these politicians over to his side in the battle of the budget Indeed, he made a surprise move in that direction April 21, during a conversation with conservative Pennsylvania Democrat Eugene Atkinson on a local call-in radio show The coming battle in Congress looms all the more important because the President has subordinated much of his foreign policy thrusts to the idea that the United States must get its economic house in order and substantially build up its defenses before it can play a truly meaningful role as a great power What Reagan has done to this point in the foreign sphere is reassert the notion that the Soviet Union poses the chief threat to peace and stability in the world The policy fits in with his contention that "if [the Russians] weren't engaged in this game of dominoes, there wouldn't be any hot spots in the world " Reagan has warned the Russians, openly and in private, to keep their hands off El Salvador and Poland, or face stiff retribution from the West He has sent his Secretary of State, Alexander M Haig Jr, and his Defense Secretary, Caspar Weinberger, on tours of the Middle East and Western Europe to spread the gospel Officially, the Administration favors arms control and talks with the Russians to limit the scope of nuclear weapons But Reagan and others close to him have a deep-seated philosophical bent against getting any sort of meaningful East-West dialogue going, despite strong pressure from America's allies that he do so A wide ideological split exists in the Administration over international economic policy, too, and some observers believe this area is even more crucial to the country's future, in practical terms, than the more remote threat of war At least in the initial round, Reagan has backed the free traders, led by Haig and Treasury Secretary Donald T Regan The specific fight, which raged within the Administration throughout most of March, was whether or not to back Congressional demands for a quota on Japanese auto imports as a means of saving American jobs Although the free traders won and quotas were rejected, the President has sponsored a host of changes in environmental and consumer safety rules in a bid to placate the domestic automakers—who, collectively, have lost more than $4 billion in the year that ended in March A week before the attempt on the President's life, a roster of important Congressional Democrats and union leaders were preparing to launch a coordinated campaign against the Rea-ganite economic policies, terming them unfeeling to the needs of the poor and ultimately harmful to the inflation-damaged middle class Others were about to assault the Reagan foreign policy as overly simplistic because, in their view, it seeks a kind of military and diplomatic superiority over the Soviet Union that is unattainable in today's world Those planned attacks were either muted or scrapped altogether when the "devastator" bullets came Now, of course, the political "time out" is gradually coming to an end Reagan's aides recognize that a host of large decisions will have to be made on such pressing matters as whether to talk seriously to the Democrats and, on another plane, to the Russians But given the unexpected delay, no realmeasureofRonald Reagan' s Presidency is possible on the basis of his first 100 days in office...

...Washington-USA REAGAN'S FIRST REPORT CARD BY ANDREW J GLASS Washington SINCE Franklin D Roosevelt's first term, it has become the practice here to watch the first 100 days of an administration closely in an effort to discover what might beexpect-ed over the course ot its incumbency Thus, after Jimmy Carter had been President for 100 days his domestic adviser, Stuart Eizenstat, prepared a single-spaced nine-page memo tor the boss to wave aloft recounting "a great many major initiatives as well as a number of significant achievements " No such memo has been prepared for Ronald Reagan, the nation's 40th Chief Executive, who passed his 100th day in office on April 30 From theonset of his Presidency, Reagan has stressed that the conservative seeds he seeks to plant in domestic and foreign policy cannot bear fruit in a few months Moreover, whatever 100-day agenda might have once been envisioned was thrown off course by one of those seemingly random events that to a distressing degree have shaped American political history For the Reagan Administration was just entering its third month, ending its shakedow n cruise and girding for the major legislative battles of the spring and summer, when the President was shot by an apparently deranged would-be assassin Reagan has returned to the White House from the hospital as something of a folk hero His popular mandate, already considerable, seems to have been strengthened by the humor and composure he displayed in surviving his brush with death But alter a few weeks in the White House residential quarters, he is still not pumng in a lull da\ ai the Oval Ottice, a 100-toot walk down a path now flanked b\ aswathot blood-red tulips His doctors and his wile Nancy insist that the President's recuperation not be rushed Beloretheshoottng, it had been Reagan's intention to make good political use of the Easter recess, a period the nation's lawmakers traditionally devote to touching base with their constituents back home His basic plan was to appeal directly to the voters over the heads of Congress, to keep the pressure on for an intact enactment of his far-reaching budget-cutting and tax-slashing program A nationwide Presidential address on television had been set for the third week of April, a time when millions of Americans would have their obligations to the tax collector on their minds The last week of April was to bring the President back to California to attend his daughter Maureen's wedding and to confer with President Lopez Portillo of Mexico in San Diego and Tijuana That schedule had to be revised...