BATTLE AT THE BACK DOOR

...If regarded as an appropriation, they must un­der the Rules of the Senate be passed upon by the Appropriations Committee...

...The majority of Congressmen ap­pear torn between two antagonisms: one against the huge federal bureauc­racy which they feel is increasingly unresponsive to the legislative will, and the other against the arrogance of their own Appropriations Com­mittees...

...Behind the opposition of the lib­erals and the committee chairmen stood the undeclared, unreferred to, but decisive hostility to the Smith Resolution of Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn himself...

...A good deal of earnest thought has been de­voted to this subject by two powerful Virginians, Senator Harry Flood Byrd, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and master tactician for conservatives in the upper house for many years, and Representative How­ard Smith, chairman of the House Rules Committee, which is equal in might to Appropriations itself...

...Smith introduced a some­what more modest resolution requir­ing that any bill that would "permit the withdrawal of money from the Treasury without further action of Congress" must go through the Ap­propriations Committee...

...Whether any middle ground can be found between these two views re­mains to be seen...

...The language before us does not do that . . /' Authorization of the Treasury to use the procedure of public debt transactions for the purpose of making loans, Boggs maintained, did not constitute an appropriation...

...Chairman Harold Cooley of Agriculture, Chairman Brent Spence of Banking and Cur­rency, Chairman Carl Vinson of Armed Services testified that the Smith Resolution would cripple im­portant programs being operated un­der authority granted by their com­mittees...

...Believing that defeat was inevitable, Johnson set about during the early hours of July 2 working out a compromise with Minority Leader Everett Dirksen, who had directed the Republican forces in support of Case the night before...

...Conservatives, stimulated by their partial victory in 1959, are likely soon to press for a clinching triumph...

...I have followed the chairman of this committee around here for 30 years, and I plan to continue to fol­low him in the future," Vinson called down the table to Smith, "but I can not approve a resolution that would cause disaster to some of the nation's most important defense projects...

...At the other end of the table, flanked by four Republicans and seven Democrats, sat Howard Smith...

...It is nonsense, in the liberal view, to say that Congress will lose control over its programs if these programs are not subjected to yearly review by Appropriations...

...Long-standing animosities sprang into the open...

...Most of the conservatives, plus a num­ber of normal liberal-to-moderates who happened to be members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, voted to override...

...These hearings produced an un­usually clear picture of the disposi­tion of power in the House...

...The pro­grams must be authorized by Con­gress in the first place, which is con­trol enough...

...Conservative strategy since 1949 has been directed to finding a way over or around the Boggs ruling...

...Furthermore, conserva­tives claim, the Appropriations Com­mittees can and should (though ad­mittedly they do not now) regard individual appropriations in the con­text of a broad federal budget...

...Testifying in favor of the resolu­tion were the tough-minded men of Appropriations: Representatives Ma­hon of Texas, Gary of Virginia, Kir­wan of Ohio, aided and abetted by such sympathetic conservatives on the Rules Committee as Smith and Brown of Ohio...

...What happened later that night re­mains a matter of controversy...

...The public debt transaction issue was thereby fused as a time bomb that is almost certain to explode dur­ing the new session of Congress...

...Some liberals contend, on the other hand, that during the night of July 1 and the morning of July 2 enough moderates who had sided with Case on the preliminary vote had been persuaded that programs dear to their hearts and dear to the hearts of their constituents would be imperiled if the point of order were sustained to reverse the result in the final test...

...The conservatives immediately moved to override the ruling of the chair...

...The Democratic leadership of both houses, in this as in other areas, has striven valiantly for several years to deal with the issue by suppressing it...

...These Committees have consistently concentrated on the substantive rather than the fiscal as­pects of legislation, and they are pre­cluded by their very natures from becoming Congressional counterparts of the Bureau of the Budget...

...On the Senate side a large part of the first session of the 86th Congress passed before the public debt trans­actions became an important issue...

...Conservatives in the House con­tented themselves during the remain­der of the session with attempting to add amendments prohibiting debt transactions to the large authoriza­tion bills that went through Congress...

...Recognizing that he lacked a majority on the Commit­tee, Smith never called for a vote...

...The chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, who regarded the reduction in the Development Loan Fund as a blow aimed at his own prestige and the effectiveness of the Mutual Security Bill, fretted and fumed but finally agreed...

...The first would lead them to safeguard any and all fiscal con­trols that Congress holds over the government...

...Into the witness chair at the end of the narrow committee table came one after an­other of the hardiest foes and stur­diest defenders of the Appropriations Committee...

...Liberals, angry with the moderate-to­conservative tone of a Congress that they had hoped, following November, 1958, to shape in their own image, seem willing to accept the challenge...

...The chair, occupied by freshman Senator Frank Moss of Utah, ruled, on the advice of the Senate parlia­mentarian, against the point of order, justifying its ruling on the rather flimsy ground that if the Develop­ment Loan Fund were in fact an ap­propriation, then the Senate had been acting in violation of its own rules since the practice of public debt financing had first been embarked upon...

...At 6 a.m...

...Expressed on the Rules Committee by Rayburn's smart young protege, Richard Boi­ling of Missouri, the Speaker's influ­ence served to hold in line six of the eight Democrats on Rules, enough to prevent the resolution from being re­ported to the floor...

...John­son claims that he made a rapid count of noses, tried without success to sway the judgments of several mod­erates who had voted in favor of the point of order, and concluded that if the Case motion came to a vote the following day it was certain to be car­ried...

...Such a broad approach is impossible if the Appropriations Committees do not in fact hold authority over all funds leaving the Treasury...

...In the latter case the "back door spending" prohibition was eliminated in con­ference with the Senate...

...Senator Aiken read to the Senate his list of programs sup­ported by public debt transactions, and argued that if the Case point of order were sustained all of these pro­grams would be subject to the same loss of freedom...

...Con­servatives argue that if the authority of the Appropriations Committees is not maintained, the power of the purse over the executive bureaucracy on which all legislative power ulti­mately rests will gradually be re­duced, with a corresponding decline in freedom for the individual citizen whose last recourse against the grow­ing might of the federal government is the protection afforded him by his Congressman...

...Such an amendment was narrowly de­feated on the airport bill, and actual­ly carried on the housing bill...

...The two leaders finally agreed, with the consent of Case, that the appeal from the chair's ruling on the point of order would be with­drawn, that the Development Loan Fund would be reduced in scope and would receive funds only through reg­ular appropriations bills, and that the entire issue of "back door spending" would be referred to a special inquiry by the Senate Rules Committee...

...The case for the resolution was summed up after sev­eral days of hearings when John Taber of New York, ranking Repub­lican on Appropriations, took the witness chair to declare in slow, em­phatic syllables, "The opposition . . . to the Smith Resolution . . . has no merit . . . whatever...

...Constitution...

...At the beginning of the 1959 ses­sion Byrd and Smith each introduced in their respective houses measures which were intended to hobble public debt transactions...

...The most damaging blow to the Smith Resolution came when con­servative, influential Carl Vinson of Georgia, who plays a kind of battling bantam rooster to Smith's lean, sedate turkey gobbler on the floor of the House, revealed his outspoken oppo­sition...

...The Byrd Resolution continued to lie dormant, and the question of "back door spending" did not become a major topic of debate during the passage of the authorization bills...

...If some way is not found to get around the power of Appropriations, they say, the remainder of the two houses will become mere ratifying bodies, subject to the proposals brought forth by the two Committees holding the purse-strings...

...Byrd proposed a comprehensive resolution giving the Appropriations Committees control over virtually every nickel that could be expended for any sort of federal project...

...Senator William Fulbright of Ar­kansas, chairman of the Foreign Re­lations Committee, caught complete­ly off-guard, fought back savagely against a restriction which he felt would effectively put an end to de­velopment loans...

...The Appropriations Committees, the liberal rebuttal con­cludes, are not and can not be budget-making bodies...

...The test never came...

...Liberals reply that both of these arguments are poppycock, meant to disguise conservative determination to win dominance for the traditional­ly conservative Appropriations Com­mittees over the entire Congress...

...the second, coupled with concern for programs financed by public debt transactions in which they themselves are interested, would lead them to agree that some chan­nel to the federal treasury must be maintained other than by way of Appropriations...

...Then, on July 1, during floor dis­cussion of the Mutual Security bill, Senator Francis Case of South Dakota rose to make a point of order against a proposal by the Foreign Relations Committee to place development loans to foreign lands on a public debt transaction basis...

...The refusal of the House Appropriations Commit­tee at any time to hold open hear­ings, the only committee in either house to dare so to refuse, was vigor­ously criticized...

...Later in the day Johnson and Dirksen raced their compromise onto the floor and got it approved by voice vote before the great majority of Sen­ators had any idea what was happen­ing...

...A final decision on the principle of public debt transactions had been avoided—but at the price of sur­rendering its practice in an area in which advocates believed that the freedom which it grants would have been particularly useful...

...A preliminary vote, 48 to 42, showed the Senate in favor of over­riding the decision of the chair, that is, of holding that authorization of public debt transactions without con­sideration by Appropriations was a violation of the rules of the Senate...

...Smith, however, proceeded to conduct hearings on his resolution before his own Rules Committee...

...This tactic, however, seems to be running out of time...

...According to Case, funds for these loans would be drawn out of the Treasury, and therefore such funds would constitute an appropriation as the term is used in the U.S...

...The Byrd Resolution was swiftly bottled up in committee by the Democratic leadership of the Senate, anxious to avoid any controversy that would divide its huge majority elect­ed at the polls a few months before...

...Arrayed with the opposition were the vocal though relatively impotent "flaming liberals" of the House, and, most important, the chairmen of the various substantive committees who felt their authority threatened by Ap­propriations...

...Only in this way can Congressional fiscal responsibility be achieved...

...It has become a battleground on which both conservatives and liberals seem prepared to stake their fundamental philosophies of government...

...at the time, ruled, " 'Appropriations/ in its usual and customary interpreta­tion, means taking money out of the Treasury by appropriate legislative language for the support of the gen­eral functions of the government...

...Many of the latter, normally conservative, deserted old alliances to protect the autonomy of their own roles...

...Senator Fulbright was dragged out of bed and presented with the settlement...

...Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, sensing that the Senate was prepared to throw all of the public debt programs into per­manent jeopardy, managed to get an adjournment before a final vote...