Lame Ducks
The Democrats returned to Washington licking their wounds and joking about being an endangered species. The prospect of a Republican president and a Republican Senate changed everybody's judgment about the value of delay: suddenly Republicans saw no reason to hurry, and Democrats saw delay as irresponsible.[87] Yet, because everybody was looking forward to January, both sides indulged in political maneuvers to inconvenience the other in the coming battles. The second resolution, which had the least direct effect on policy, was occasion for the greatest level of posturing.
House Democrats produced a resolution that admitted a deficit of $25 billion, but they managed that low figure only by reducing estimated spending by 2 percent across the board. Chairman Giaimo explained
that the incoming president had claimed he could find so much in cuts from "waste, fraud, and abuse"; the Democrats were just taking him at his words.[88] In a very rushed conference, Senate negotiators accepted the House revenue figure and agreed on spending numbers even though their reasons differed.[89]
The Post called the second resolution a fake. Senator Henry Bellmon (R-Okla.) noted that appropriations already in the pipeline were likely to exceed the "binding" resolution's totals by about $10 billion.[90] Senator William Armstrong (R-Colo.), in the spirit of the holiday season, called it a "turkey." Hollings claimed that the budget would have been balanced save for vitally necessary increases in defense spending. "Now that he has landed as Pilgrim Armstrong on the shores of leadership, and he gets this turkey," Hollings added, "I want to see how he carves it."[91]
Reconciliation conferees projected a deficit reduction of $8.2 billion. They also added reauthorizations of two child nutrition programs to the package. "I am deeply disturbed," Barber Conable commented, "that [reconciliation] seems to have become a new mechanism for holding the government hostage, agglomerating a lot of very important substantive issues … and being accepted only because we are under great fiscal pressure at this point in our budget process."[92] He and the Republicans, of course, would not think of doing such a thing—unless they could control it. Whatever their objections, members of both parties agreed with Delbert Latta that a vote against the reconciliation report was a "vote for $8.2 billion more deficit for fiscal 1981.[93] The conference agreement passed overwhelmingly on December 3.
Without the 1980 reconciliation as precedent, committing Democrats to the procedure, that of 1981 might not have occurred. The experience of 1980 also foreshadowed the rules battles, scorekeeping problems, and rider vulnerability that would make reconciliation a mixed blessing for budgeters.
Only the appropriations—most of the government—remained. Defense was settled fairly easily. Liberals knew they would do even worse in the next Congress, so they did not fight too hard. Conservatives wanted to get the money out to the military as soon as possible, returning for more in supplemental appropriations.[94] On December 5 Congress passed a $159.7 billion Department of Defense (DOD) appropriation, the major part of a 9 percent real increase in budget authority for the military,[95] the biggest peacetime increase in history to that point.
Congress faced two obstacles to passing the other appropriations: conflict over various riders, especially busing, and the Second Resolution's binding spending limits, which included a 2 percent cut Reagan was supposed to find. Congress was not about to redo all bargaining and
decisions that had led to the appropriations bills passed and pending. Either the last one or two bills considered would be out of order, or Congress would have to waive the resolution that it had just passed.
Congress avoided all these choices by wrapping the last few bills in a continuing resolution that expired on June 5. Lopping off the last four months of the year meant that total authority was under the budget limits, but that everybody could spend at the desired rate until June 5, at which point they would think of something. Clever as this solution was, it had a problem. The CR became an immensely tempting target for nonbudgetary riders. Once again, the government nearly ground to a halt as the House and Senate battled over the CR's provisions.
On December 1, House Appropriations reported out a simple bill by voice vote. Chairman Jamie Whitten (D-Miss.) managed to keep all but a few amendments off the draft, which provided for funding levels at the rates mandated in the most recent congressional action, expiring June 5. This bill, H.J.Res. 637, passed the House on December 3. Senate Appropriations then tacked on dozens of amendments. On the floor, the Senate removed two of the Christmas tree's ornaments: senators excluded the offending busing rider (that forbade using Justice Department resources for lawsuits that might lead to court-ordered school busing for desegregation[96] because conservatives, led by Senator Jesse Helms (D-N.C.), were convinced that in January the new president would be on their side;[97] the second exclusion was the senators' own pay raise.
Congressmen, comparing themselves to other high-powered lawyers and assuming extraordinary expenses (like two homes), feel underpaid. Voters, almost all of whom make much less, disagree. Therefore, members who want more compensation go through exceedingly complex maneuvers to get it, while other members, wishing to curry favor with voters, keep challenging such maneuvers. The issue affects the entire top level of the civil service because members keep bureaucrats' salaries at a level ("cap") below their own. As lower levels receive raises, they bump into the cap; thus civil servants holding different positions in the hierarchy end up with the same salaries.
Senate Appropriations took the opportunity of CR debate to raise the cap on a voice vote, allowing a $10,000 raise for members of Congress and raises for more than 30,000 federal executives. Given the public's intense distaste for congressional pay increases, on the Senate floor, in a recorded vote, senators reimposed the pay cap, 69 to 21.[98] Having pleased the public (they hoped) by attacking themselves, the senators turned around and hung many more baubles on the holiday tree (beetle eradication, a Baltimore Harbor, hurricane disaster relief, etc.). Thus decorated, the CR was passed on December 11 and sent to conference.[99]
The pay raise returned in the conference agreement, which slipped
through the House on a voice vote. But the Senate removed the raise, sending the CR back to conference. The House in turn passed a new CR (H.J.Res. 644) that included neither the pay raise nor the dozens of Senate amendments to the original CR (H.J.Res. 637). Chairman Whitten told the senators to take their pick: a bountiful Christmas tree including the pay raise or a scrawny, sparsely-decorated one.[100] The Senate amended H.J.Res. 644, removing the House's limited decorations and giving the House a choice between the Senate's bountiful tree, without a pay raise, or a totally bare tree.
Now there were two CRs in conference along with many irritated legislators. "There ain't gonna be no pay raise," said Senate Minority (soon to be Majority) Leader Howard Baker (R-Tenn.).[101] At the last moment, in the early morning of December 16, conferees agreed to a CR with only a very few, noncontroversial amendments. That was roughly where Chairman Whitten had begun on December 1. The final battle was a fitting conclusion to 1980: neither side felt the result was worth the struggle to get it.