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In past years, said the President, "there were always those who told us that taxes couldn't be cut until spending was reduced. Well, you know we can lecture our children about extravagance until we run out of voice and breath. Or we can cure their extravagance simply by reducing their allowance." In other words, tax cuts are necessary not only to prompt savings and investment, but also to force Congress to crack down on spending. Nonetheless, there are deep fears in Congress that reducing taxes as drastically as Reagan wants would bloat an already inflationary deficit. House Budget Committee Chairman James Jones of Oklahoma predicts that Congress will cut income tax rates by 10% for only one year, not three in a row.
Slashing spending may be even harder. Some cynics suggest that Stockman is recommending the most shocking range of reductions imaginable so that Reagan can raise sighs of relief by eventually adopting a somewhat milder program. But Congressmen know that Reagan's landslide victory pointed to an anti-spending mood among Americans that the President is appealing to. So there is likely to be something in the eventual program to anger almost every lobby in the country, and they will be heard from. Said Republican Senator William Cohen of Maine: "The President had better move fast before his pedestal crumbles. He's got a tide of good will now, but that is going to fade fast. Every group in my state is beginning to call in."
The difficulties of changing established congressional budget-voting patterns—and the irresistible temptation that many legislators feel to act like demagogues on even the most necessary economic proposals —were underlined for Reagan last week by a silly fight over the national debt. The President asked for a $50 billion increase in the ceiling on that debt, to $985 billion. Like his predecessors, who have had to ask Congress to raise the debt ceiling 21 times since late 1973, he had no choice. If the Government's authority to borrow were not increased, it would run out of money to pay its bills and be unable to function after mid-February.
The trouble was that Republicans for years in the Democratic-controlled Congresses have voted solidly against increases in the debt ceiling, even some proposed by Presidents Nixon and Ford. Then they would portray Democrats who voted to raise the ceiling as champions of wild spending. This time the Democrats were determined to make their G.O.P. colleagues squirm. The Democrats proclaimed that they would not vote for Reagan's request unless a majority of Republicans did too.