Job Well Done, Finally

In concluding its 99th session last weekend, Congress behaved somewhat like the little boy who could not go out to play until he cleaned his room. The task took longer than it should have. And some of the toys were left scattered under the bed. But, by and large, the job got done.

In the end, Congress had toiled two weeks beyond its planned adjournment. It never did pass a single departmental appropriations bill. Thus all spending was stuffed into one $576-billion continuing resolution, which passed only after the Reagan Administration engaged in the charade of shutting down the government.

This was the year that Gramm-Rudman turned into a pumpkin without even waiting until midnight. Congress pretended to meet the deficit-reduction target with gimmicks and declared the problem solved, for now. In the rush to adjournment, and the hustings, several other important matters fell through the cracks.

For all the criticism about the process, however, the record of the second session of the 99th Congress is a remarkable one. Last January, about all anyone talked about was Gramm-Rudman and getting home to campaign for reelection. Even tax reform was considered clinically dead at that point.

Tax reform, of course, not only revived, but assumed a momentum that could not be stopped. Credit for that goes to the President. By identifying tax reform as his priority domestic goal, he kept the political pressure on Congress to pass a bill. Credit Congress for fashioning perhaps the best possible compromise achievable under the circumstances, particularly in terms of the help the bill gives to low- and middle-income Americans.

Several other important domestic programs won approval, and not necessarily with the Administration’s assistance. They include the reauthorized Superfund program for the cleanup of toxic dumps, extension of the Clean Water Act, immigration reform and the first water projects authorization program in 15 years, with a provision that local sponsors of such projects must bear a substantial part of the cost.

In foreign affairs and national security, Congress seized the initiative from the President on critical issues. It put the nation on the proper moral course in dealing with South Africa and the Marcos government in the Philippines, restricted deployment of the MX missile and held military spending to a more reasonable level.

The major issue left under the bed was control of ongoing budget deficits, with the related dilemma of the trade deficit. Regardless of its political makeup, the new 100th Congress should quickly give both deficits the top domestic priority of 1987. Effective deficit reduction can be achieved only through a combination of budget cuts and tax increases, and serious attention to the issue by both the White House and Congress.