Democratic jubilation has given way to sober reality - editorial

Nation's Business, Dec, 1987

Democratic Jubilation Has Given Way To Sober Reality

Democrats were understandably jubilant when the 100th Congress convened last January. They were in a majority in the Senate for the first time since 1980 and had strengthened their control of the House of Representatives.

The road was clear, party leaders said, for enactment of economic and social programs that had languished during the six years of Republication control of the Senate.

Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) returned to the Senate majority leader's post he had surrendered after the GOP won control of that body in the Reagan landslide of 1980. Rep. Jim Wright (D-Tex.) was elected Speaker of the House to replace Thomas P. O'Neill (D-Mass.), who had retired.

The two leaders saw the Democratic-controlled Congress as a vehicle for resolving the nation's most pressing problems. "The American people voted for change, and change they shall have," Byrd said in a floor speech marking the opening of the 100th Congress. Wright called for steps to halt what he called the economic "retrogression" under way in the country.

Both leaders pledged strong action to reduce the budget and trade deficits that were hampering the economy, to improve the educational system, to resolve the farm problem, to restore the nation's basic industries to health and to achieve a foreign policy that would resolve issues ranging from nuclear-arms control to terrorism.

The party's leaders and its emerging crop of White House hopefuls saw 1987 as an opportunity to set the political stage for the 1988 presidential election. They would build a record that would convince voters that the Democratic Party could provide the leadership the nation needed.

The majority party in both houses of Congress did indeed seem to be in a take-charge mode as the 100th Congress began. Its members swiftly passed long-pending bills for financing construction of sewage-treatment plants and highways and were able to rally sufficient Republican support to override vetoes by President Reagan. He had rejected both measures as excessively costly.

In the changed political environment on Capitol Hill, organized labor was able to put its with list into legislative form.

The Democratic pledge to deal effectively with budget deficits has been reduced to a quest for more taxes. Trade legislation is still being drafted, and it remains to be seen whether the final version will achieve the goals set last January. Democratic hopes of making major significant changes in foreign policy now appear to have come down to the question of whether to cut off military aid to the Nicaraguan contras. Managing global events, members have discovered, is not easily achieved through prolonged deliberations designed to accommodate the conflicting interests of many points of view.

Answers to the farm problem, development of an effective education policy within available resources and solutions to a wide range of other national concerns also remain elusive.

And, as the financial markets were battered late in the year, Congress was unable to provide the assurance that public policies sufficient to restore confidence would be forthcoming.

The Democratic leadership promised a legislative record that would prove the party's ability to give the nation the leadership it needs, leadership they assumed would be embodied next year in a victorious presidential candidate.

But a member of the party's rank and file was more guarded in his outlook. Rep. Philip R. Sharp (D-Ind.) said: "The Democratic Party's success in the next presidential election will depend on whether people perceive that the party was able to bring things together and address some of the country's problems. It's going to be a major test for us Democrats."

The results of that test are becoming increasingly obvious as the 100th Congress nears its halfway point. They show that the majority party in Congress still has a long way to go if it hopes to forge a record to offer voters next year as justification for electing its candidate for president.

Photo: For Speaker Jim Wright (left) and Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd, victory in last year's elections has turned bittersweet.