Slow-Beating Heart

President Kennedy's domestic programs have a lot of heart. The heart throbs in soaring passages of presidential messages and speeches, in the busy comings and goings of his aides (Labor Secretary Arthur Goldberg among the unemployed), and in departmental policy proclamations (the Interior Department's promised review of rising fuel oil and gas prices). But in the cardiograms of Kennedy's specific proposals to Congress, the heart is beating very slowly and deliberately, in deference to congressional low blood pressure about any bold New Frontier programs.

The big heart and the slow beat were evident last week in two major presidential messages to Congress:

Federal Aid to Education. The education proposal promised to lift the nation's educational standards and plot new directions. But when it came to the realities of the fiveyear, $5.6 billion request for school aid, Kennedy made some obvious accommodations (see EDUCATION). And after consultation with his Congressional leaders--Senate Chief Mike Mansfield, House Speaker Sam Rayburn and their assistants--he cut his task force's recommendations for annual public school grants from $1,460,000,000 to $766,000,000 a year. Even so, school aid faced some deep pitfalls. Some powerful Roman Catholics clamored for grants for parochial schools, even though Kennedy had said flatly that they would be unconstitutional. Speaker Rayburn openly opposed federal aid to teachers but loyally promised not to sidetrack the bill. "My hope," said Welfare Secretary Abraham Ribicoff desperately, "is that we would not block education with any side issues."

Natural Resources. Kennedy drew a bead on the Eisenhower "no new starts" policy on federal construction projects. By postponing flood control, Kennedy said, Ike's programs had caused "a heavy toll in added costs and even human life." Kennedy, in his message to Congress, proposed a widespread program of river basin development, flood control, reforestation, air-and water-pollution control, saltwater conversion research. He was unspecific on timing and overall costs. His request for a ten-year nuclear power development program, to be administered jointly by the Government and private industry, was more cautious than the faster, all-federal program that his natural resources task force had proposed.

Other major items in the Kennedy nine-point welfare program:

Minimum Wages. Even though he tempered his own bill, which failed last year, by offering a gradual, three-year approach to the $1.25 minimum wage floor, and by extending its benefits to 4,300,000 breadwinners instead of 7,500,000, Kennedy faced thunder from left to right. Education and Labor Committee Chairman Adam Clayton Powell (echoed by the A.F.L.-C.I.O. lobby) howled that the plan offered too little, and conservatives in the House cried that it promised too much. The bill is in trouble in the House.

Unemployment Compensation. The Administration's $1 billion plan to extend relief payments for the jobless by as much as 13 weeks was cleared by the House Ways & Means Committee, headed for safe passage this week.

Depressed Areas Aid. With the approval of many Eastern Republicans, the $390 million bill seems assured of smooth and rapid transit to the White House.

Medicare. The sweeping plan to provide medical aid to 14,200,000 aging Americans by gradually stepped-up social security payments will be the crucial test of the Kennedy welfare program. Although he insisted in his message to Congress that the plan is not socialized medicine ("Every person will choose his own doctor and hospital"), Kennedy did not convince many unconvinced legislators. In the face of opposition by the American Medical Association, the bill has an uncertain future.

There were hints that, if Congress still refused to accept his welfare program, Jack Kennedy might go directly to the people with a tested technique of Franklin Roosevelt's, the fireside chat. But even if he does, he will still be careful of congressional blood pressure. Wrote Kennedy's friend and recent dinner host, New York Herald Tribman Rowland Evans: "It is the President's highest intention to maintain a cooperative working relationship with Congress . . . The drill will be compromise and accommodation, except in extreme circumstances."

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