Showing Who’s in Charge

President Reagan complains that an $87.9 billion-highway bill that Congress passed by huge majorities would finance 152 projects in all parts of the country and therefore is a barrel of pork.

That is a strange position to take on a bill written to finance another five years of federal aid to state highways and finish the Interstate Highway Project, programs that both go back 30 years or more. Where else would Congress pay to build or improve highways except all over the country?

The pork-barrel complaint is especially curious coming from an Administration whose Pentagon carefully chops up major defense contracts into subcontracts in as many states as possible in order to catch the eye, and vote, of the maximum number of members of Congress.

Still the President plans to veto the bill and people in Washington, who often have a quaint way of looking at things, are saying that it would be his way of showing he is in charge.

If he vetoes the bill, what he would be in charge of is bringing to a halt some $300 million worth of various highway projects--some already under way--in California alone. He can call them pork if he wants to, but they are the kind of pork on which trucks and commuters travel in a flow of commerce that keeps this country going.

The President would also be in charge of stretching out for whatever length of time the completion of the interstate system that was originally sold to the country on the basis that it was essential to national defense to have a seamless web of highways in a time of crisis.

There are $18.9 billion worth of mass transportation projects in the bill, as well, of which more than $600 million is for phase two of Metro Rail in Los Angeles.

The President cannot argue that he is short of money. All of the projects in the bill would be financed from the highway trust fund, money from which cannot be spent on anything except transportation.

Leaders in Congress who negotiated the fine points of the bill that led to its passage in the House by 407 votes to 17 and in the Senate by 79 to 17 say they could not start all over again this year.

The President should get the bill today. If he goes through with a veto, Congress should promptly override, even at the risk of confusing Washington on the question of who is in charge.