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Farm Bill. In his budget-cutting fervor, Reagan has proposed slashing or eliminating entirely a bale of venerable farm-aid programs. For example, he proposes moderating commodity price supports for most farm products, abolishing some special programs like peanut acreage allotments, and pulling the plug on the Rural Electrification Administration. As chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, Jesse Helms of North Carolina has junked the Administration's farm bill in favor of his own, more expensive version; the House Agriculture Committee, meanwhile, has endorsed a bill that, complains a White House aide, "totally disregards what Reagan wanted." The Administration may have no choice but to accept a more costly version of its bill.
Defense Spending. Congress is inclined to accept in principle Reagan's plan to increase defense expenditures, but there is considerable disagreement on specifics. Members of both parties are jousting with the White House over the price tags on the new F-16 and F-18 fighter planes and the advantages of ground vs. ship-launched cruise missiles. Battle lines are already being drawn for upcoming debates over the MX missile and a new B-l bomber. Even the Administration's proposal to reactivate two mothballed warships, including the World War II battleship New Jersey, has run into strong Senate opposition. Critics contend the ships simply are not worth the salvage cost.
The most serious dispute centers around the Pentagon's inflation estimate. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, backed by OMB Chief David Stockman, insists that inflation will fall much faster than most economic forecasters predict. Weinberger has jiggered his budget accordingly by adding billions of dollars worth of armaments. Yet many Pentagon backers in Congress are afraid that support for increased defense spending will quickly erode if Weinberger's economic forecasts prove too rosy and defense estimates start spiraling upward while Congress is simultaneously slashing domestic programs. Says Democrat Sam Nunn of Georgia, long an advocate of rejuvenating the military: "What is going to happen to the consensus built on defense when, six or eight months from now, this budget keeps going straight up?"
Foreign Car Imports. While diplomats in Tokyo and Washington politely fence over a "voluntary" import quota of Japanese cars to the U.S., support is growing in Congress, especially in the Senate, for a mandatory limit of 1.6 million cars annually (almost 1.9 million Japanese cars were sold in the U.S. last year). A dedicated believer in free trade, Reagan may soon find himself in a nasty squabble with Congressmen from big auto-industry states, especially if domestic car sales continue to sag.
El Salvador. After Congress grudgingly agreed to a modest increase of $5 million in U.S. military aid to that embattled country, Reagan ceased talking openly about drawing the line against worldwide Soviet aggression there. But any attempt by the Administration to send more arms or military "trainers" to Central America would run into fierce congressional opposition—opposition that is shared, polls show, by most Americans.