For the Record

With budget victories in House and Senate, Administration is moving on to tax cut. White House Chief of Staff James A. Baker III says Reagan is standing firm on three-year, 30 per cent cut. Rep. James Jones (D., Okla.), chairman of House Budget Committee, says, “If the President puts the same effort into [Reagan-Kemp-Roth] as he did on budget, he’ll get it.” Other Dem-crats don’t agree. “The President says he’s in cement on a three-year tax cut, and I’m in cement on one year,” says House Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski. Big question is which way 63 Democrats who voted for Reagan budget cuts will go. Survey commissioned by House Speaker Tip O’Neill revealed that city of 63 Democratic “defectors” will not bolt this time. But GOP views survey merely as negotiating ploy.Senate Finance Committee Chairman Robert Dole says five or six of 1 1 GOP members of committee have reservations about tax cut and only one or two Democrats are for it As expected, Reagan budget easily won in Senate, with only two Republicans opposing it: Gordon Humphrey (N.H.) and Lowell Weicker (Conn.). Weicker is also opposed to Reagan tax-cut proposal, believing it will “prove to be destructive of our economy.” Weicker is giving Orrin Hatch fits on Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee. In one day four health bills sponsored by Committee Chairman Hatch went down to defeat, thanks in large part to Weicker, who voted with minority on every vote. Before voting began, Hatch commented: “If the majority loses on this committee it will be a normal thing, because we have never won.”. Mainstream GOP could soon get its revenge. Prescott Bush, brother of Veep, will probably enter next year’s GOP senatorial primary against Weicker. Prescott Bush Sr. was also a senator from Connecticut.

With Senator Paul Sarbanes (D., Md.) already on its hit list for 1982, National Conservative Political Action Committee may soon be going after the big one. If NCPAC gets favorable response from recent survey, it will target “crown prince of liberalism”—Ted Kennedy. NCPAC Chairman Terry Dolan quotes advocates of move against Kennedy as saying the defeat of Kennedy “would virtually destroy the liberal movement in America.”. Reagan budget victory has brought Democratic internal problems into the open. Washington Post quotes unnamed Democratic leader: “The liberals have been asking for this. The Democratic Party has given greater weight to the liberal wing than its members deserved and groups that held the party’s conscience—women and minorities—have vetoed rational means to adjust our policy. Well, that veto is over.”Speaker Tip O’Neill could be casualty of Democratic infighting; he is accused of appeasing conservative Democrats and getting nothing in return. “It will be a continuing issue of concern why members who bolt the party still are considered members of the party in good standing,” says liberal Rep. James Blanchard (D., Mich.). But even when Democrats are together, says Rep. Bill Hefner (D., N.C.), “we’re still fragmented. We’re a party made up of liberals, moderates, and conservatives. We don’t have the luxury of the Republicans, who know exactly what their constituency is and who won’t let just anybody into their party.”

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With budget victories in House and Senate, Administration is moving on to tax cut. White House Chief of Staff James A. Baker III says Reagan is standing firm on three-year, 30 per cent cut. Rep. James Jones (D., Okla.), chairman of House Budget Committee, says, “If the President puts the same effort into [Reagan-Kemp-Roth] as he did on budget, he’ll get it.” Other Dem-crats don’t agree. “The President says he’s in cement on a three-year tax cut, and I’m in cement on one year,” says House Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski. Big question is which way 63 Democrats who voted for Reagan budget cuts will go. Survey commissioned by House Speaker Tip O’Neill revealed that city of 63 Democratic “defectors” will not bolt this time. But GOP views survey merely as negotiating ploy.Senate Finance Committee Chairman Robert Dole says five or six of 1 1 GOP members of committee have reservations about tax cut and only one or two Democrats are for it As expected, Reagan budget easily won in Senate, with only two Republicans opposing it: Gordon Humphrey (N.H.) and Lowell Weicker (Conn.). Weicker is also opposed to Reagan tax-cut proposal, believing it will “prove to be destructive of our economy.” Weicker is giving Orrin Hatch fits on Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee. In one day four health bills sponsored by Committee Chairman Hatch went down to defeat, thanks in large part to Weicker, who voted with minority on every vote. Before voting began, Hatch commented: “If the majority loses on this committee it will be a normal thing, because we have never won.”. Mainstream GOP could soon get its revenge. Prescott Bush, brother of Veep, will probably enter next year’s GOP senatorial primary against Weicker. Prescott Bush Sr. was also a senator from Connecticut.

With Senator Paul Sarbanes (D., Md.) already on its hit list for 1982, National Conservative Political Action Committee may soon be going after the big one. If NCPAC gets favorable response from recent survey, it will target “crown prince of liberalism”—Ted Kennedy. NCPAC Chairman Terry Dolan quotes advocates of move against Kennedy as saying the defeat of Kennedy “would virtually destroy the liberal movement in America.”. Reagan budget victory has brought Democratic internal problems into the open. Washington Post quotes unnamed Democratic leader: “The liberals have been asking for this. The Democratic Party has given greater weight to the liberal wing than its members deserved and groups that held the party’s conscience—women and minorities—have vetoed rational means to adjust our policy. Well, that veto is over.”Speaker Tip O’Neill could be casualty of Democratic infighting; he is accused of appeasing conservative Democrats and getting nothing in return. “It will be a continuing issue of concern why members who bolt the party still are considered members of the party in good standing,” says liberal Rep. James Blanchard (D., Mich.). But even when Democrats are together, says Rep. Bill Hefner (D., N.C.), “we’re still fragmented. We’re a party made up of liberals, moderates, and conservatives. We don’t have the luxury of the Republicans, who know exactly what their constituency is and who won’t let just anybody into their party.”