Maneuvers on the Hill

Hours before President Eisenhower went on the air with his tax program, two stories buzzed along the Capitol Hill grapevine. The first was the hot dope that Ike wanted to extend the excess profits tax beyond its expiration date. The second was the cold speculation on parliamentary devices which the House leadership could use to get Ike's tax program around New York's Daniel Alden Reed, chairman of the Ways & Means Committee. Both stories were carefully calculated (by G.O.P. leaders) to reach the ears of old Chairman Reed, who was stoutly committed to a cut in both excess profits and individual income taxes by July 1.

Early next morning, Dan Reed caught the next psychological blow. A secretary called from the office of House Speaker Joe Martin and said: "The speaker is calling a meeting of the Republican members of the Ways & Means Committee for 1:30 this afternoon. Will Mr. Reed be present?" It sounded like an innocent question, but Dan Reed now knew for sure that Joe Martin was ready to move in, if necessary with all the speaker's power, to back Ike's program.

Dan Reed quickly rounded up the Republicans on his own committee, who realized that their prestige would be seriously hurt if the House leadership made a complete end run around them. Said Pennsylvania's Republican Representative Dick Simpson: "Let's grab the ball." Unanimously, the 14 agreed to hold hearings on extending the excess profits tax, as Ike requested.

By the time Joe Martin called his meeting, he knew that Dan Reed was weakening. Both Martin and G.O.P. Majority Leader Charlie Halleck poured a generous pitcher of political syrup. There had been a lot of talk about undercutting his old buddy, Dan Reed, said Joe, and everybody surely knew that was just talk. He respected Dan's position, and wanted to talk to all the committee's Republicans on the President's proposals. He made it clear that the Republican leadership was ready to go down the line for the President.

After Reed's Ways & Means men reported their decision to hold hearings, Joe Martin gently prodded them into fixing June 1 as the starting date, with the hope that the job would be finished in ten days. With that, Joe Martin could draw an easier breath; the first phase of his job was done, and not a drop of Republican blood had been spilled. At week's end the prospects were that the extension of EPT would be voted by the House. Said one House leader: "A week ago I would have bet you 20 to 1 there wasn't a chance of extending EPT. Now, once we get it on the floor, you won't be able to stop it."

Last week the House also:

P:Passed a resolution, retroactive to March 1, 1803, making Ohio a state. There was no real doubt about Ohio's legitimacy (although a congressional oversight left a technical doubt about the exact day on which the state was admitted to the Union); the resolution was a publicity stunt by Cleveland's noisy Representative George Bender to attract attention to Ohio's sesquicentennial celebration this year.

P:Reversed its budget-cutting ways (all four previous appropriation bills were cut) to increase Agriculture Department appropriations for fiscal 1954 to $1.08 billion, which is $8,900,000 more than the Eisenhower Administration requested. The increase came from a hike in soil-conservation funds, voted after North Dakota's crusty Republican Representative Usher L. Burdick told his colleagues: "Now, if you want to legislate yourselves right out of control of this House, you get in here and oppose soil conservation."

The Senate:

P:Passed and sent to House-Senate conference the first appropriation bill of the session, authorizing $446 million to run 24 independent Government offices (e.g., the President's office, the Federal Trade Commission) during fiscal 1954. The Senate's bill was $4,100,000 less than the House allowed, thus upsetting the common Senate practice of increasing House appropriation bills.

P:Amended Senator Homer Capehart's standby controls bill, gave Congress, not the President, the power to throw the switch on controls in case of a grave national emergency, then passed the bill and sent it on to the House.

P:Finally rejected, 56-19, the effort of Oregon Maverick Wayne Morse to regain his seats on the Labor and Armed Services Committees. Then, by voice vote, relegated Morse to the Senatorial Limbo--the District of Columbia and Public Works Committees.

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