Unfinished Business

Though Congress is not expected to adjourn until mid-December, much of the legislation that Lyndon Johnson regards as vital already seems destined for delay until 1968. Most important of the bogged-down bills is the President's proposal for a 10% tax surcharge and, in the election-year atmosphere of the second session, the bill seems likely once again to provoke a deadlock over spending and taxes. "We are doing nothing," Johnson conceded last week. "We are at a standstill."

What little movement there was bred new delay and debate. A Senate-House conference committee ended a two-month impasse over the foreign aid authorization bill, recommending $2.67 billion-$780 million less than the Administration had requested. The conference also decided to abolish a loan program that finances allied arms purchases in the U.S. Meanwhile, a House appropriations subcommittee drew up a different measure that provided even less money and more restrictions on military aid. The bill raising Social Security benefits that is emerging in the Senate is far more generous than the one already voted in the House, while the air-pollution-control measure passed by the House last week provides only two-thirds of the funds approved earlier by the Senate.

So obdurate was the mood on Capitol Hill that a joint conference committee moved not an inch toward resolving a dispute over a normally routine financing measure needed to fund agencies for which regular appropriations are still pending. The House wants to use the financing resolution as a lever to force the White House to make budget cuts of up to $8 billion while the Senate refuses to cooperate in the ploy. While the conferees scheduled yet another meeting for this week, the District of Columbia government, the Agency for International Development and the Office of Economic Opportunity --technically dollarless since Oct. : struggled to meet payrolls and maintain normal operations. The first casualties were five OEO community-action programs in Florida, Georgia and Mississippi that were forced to close down last week. Thirty others may soon follow.

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