"Although in the past I have tried to judge each issue on its merits," the Louisiana Democrat said, "I myself am being brought around slowly to this point of view, particularly in areas where it seems the welfare of foreigners is being given priority over that of our own people."

He noted that the Administration, after impounding nearly $13-billion for domestic programs, had come to Congress with a request for an additional $733-million for foreign aid.

To Senator Ellender, the issue was one of whether Congress or the Executive branch would determine spending priorities.

"We are dealing here with the establishment of national priorities in matters of finance," he said. "Some faceless individual is saying this is what we should do and will do. Congress is being told to go jump in the Red River waterway, if it ever gets built."

Senator Ellender criticized the Administration's budgetary actions in a speech prepared for delivery in Shreveport, La., before the Red River Valley Association. Nearly $3-million in funds for the Red River waterway has been impounded by the Administration.

To others in Congress, the issue, while related to determination of national priorities, goes deeper and relates to the preservation of the balance of powers between Congress and the Executive branch and in particular to protection of Congress's basic control over the purse strings through the constitutional power to make appropriations.

To the delight of the liberals, who have been upset over the impounding of funds for domestic programs begun in Democratic administrations, the leadership in this Congressional cause has been assumed by Senator Sam J. Ervin Jr. of North Carolina, a Democratic conservative who is regarded as one of the Senate's leading constitutional authorities.

Before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, which he heads, Senator Ervin recently complained that "the growing practice" of Executive impoundment "poses a threat to our system of government and patently violates the separation of powers doctrine."

By impounding funds, he said, "the President is able to modify, reshape or nullify completely laws passed by Congress, thus making policy through Exective power, an exercise of his office, which, as any elementary student of government knows, flies directly in the face of constitutional principles."

In much the same manner that the Senate liberals and conservatives are trying to establish legislative restrictions on the President's war-making powers, Congress on the domestic front, is beginning to grapple with the issue of how to give the Presidency flexibility to carry out economic and fiscal policies and still protect Congress's constitutional power of the purse.

[From The New York Times, Mar. 4, 1971]

SPARKMAN ASSAILS NIXON FOR REFUSING TO SPEND $8-BILLION

(By John Herbers)

Washington, March 3-Senator John J. Sparkman, Democrat of Alabama, attacked the Nixon Administration today for “impounding" more than $8billion in appropriated funds for various programs, primarily domestic. He said that this constituted a "serious breach of faith" with Congress.

The $8-billion figure was a preliminary estimate made by George P. Shultz, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, last week before the House Appropriations Committee. That portion of his testimony attracted little attention at the ime.

SPARKMAN SCORES NIXON ON FUNDS

Senator Sparkman's criticism, which was uncharacteristically harsh, came as the Housing and Urban Affairs Subcommittee, which he heads, opened hearings into the withholding of some $1-billion from housing, transportation, public works and other urban_programs.

Mayors Thomas J. D'Alesandro of Baltimore and Lee Alexander of Syracuse, appearing in behalf of the National League of cities and the United States Conference of Mayors, said the cutback "is placing an added burden on already beleaguered cities."

ERVIN PLANS HEARINGS

The Administration action, which has not been fully explained has aroused concern and anger in both houses of Congress. Senator Sam J. Ervin Jr., Democrat of North Carolina, a fiscal conservative, announced that the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Separation of Powers would hold hearings March 23-25 on the issue.

"What concerns me," Senator Ervin said, "is the use of the impounding practice to avoid or nullify Congressional intent. All too frequently, when Congress votes substantially more funds for a program than the executive branch requested, the President signs the appropriation bill, then directs the Office of Management and Budget not to release the funds to the agencies designated to carry out the program in question."

Representative Joe L. Evins, Democrat of Tennessee, a ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, said the practice amounts to "item veto," a power the President does not have under the Constitution.

This is an old dispute between Congress and the Executive branch. Mr. Shultz, under questioning by Mr. Evins last week, said it had been established that a Congressional appropriation did not carry with it a mandate that the money be spent.

What aroused members of Congress anew was the large amount of money involved, the damage Mayors say is being done to urban programs and the fact that the Administration is pushing a full employment budget to expand the economy.

"We are getting complaints from all over the country about this," Senator, Sparkman said. "Our best job-producing programs are being impaired at the same time we are presented a deficit budget for the purpose of cutting unemployment. Does it make sense?"

George Romney, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and officials of the Office of Management and Budget are to testify tomorrow as to the reasons for the funds not being spent.

Some of the Mayors have said privately that they suspect the money is being withheld as a means of garnering support for President Nixon's proposal for general and special revenue-sharing with the states and local governments and in order to carry out the Administration's own priorities in the urban area.

They contend that the programs that have been cut the deepest are those that have been consistently unpopular with the White House.

PUBLIC HOUSING CUT

As an example, Mayor D'Alesandro said today that "officials from H.U.D. and from the White House and O.M.B. tell us that this Administration doesn't like public housing" and would like to put more emphasis on the subsidized private housing programs.

Public housing projects throughout the country, he said, are being curtailed because the Administration is withholding $192-million on contract authority. "Each year," Mr. D'Alesandro said, "the representatives of the cities come before the Congress, along with the Administration, to debate the needs of our urban areas. First, we debate the size of the authorization request.

"Then, we return to the Hill to argue for full appropriations. Each time, the Administration presents its arguments, usually for lower levels of funding in the programs we are discussing today. Now, however, the Administration has seen fit to carry the debate one step further. Apparently, we must return to the Congress once again to argue whether the monies, which have already been authorized and appropriated, will in fact be spent."

The Mayors contended that the funds withheld included $200-million for urban renewal, $200-million for water and sewer facilities and $430-million for mass transit.

'INTENSIVE DISCUSSION'

Mayor Alexander pointed out, however, that after "several weeks of intensive discussion" the Administration had decided to obligate all the Model Cities funds appropriated by Congress. The backlog in appropriated money for Model Cities, caused in part by the impounding of funds, is now more than $700-million, more than the annual appropriation of $575-million.

Mr. Alexander said the Mayors were supporting President Nixon's proposal to return $5-billion in the first full year to the state and local governments in general revenue-sharing.

[From The New York Times, Mar. 3, 1971]

NIXON AIDES DEFEND POSTPONING OUTLAYS

(By John Herbers)

Washington, March 4-The Nixon Administration told Congress today that the main reason it had impounded some $8-billion in appropriated funds was to combat inflation.

Testifying before the Senate Subcommitee on Housing and Urban Affairs, Administration officials said that most of the funds withheld were for construction, an area of the economy that has been particularly vulnerable to inflation.

"A balance must be struck between bringing inflation under control and meeting other national needs," said Caspar W. Weinberger, Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget. "One way of doing this is by being selective in applying fiscal restraints."

Democrats on the subcommittee said that they found the reasoning incredible. They said that such a policy was incompatible with the expansionary, fullemployment budget presented by President Nixon. And they argued that, under current conditions in the construction industry, the urban programs that had been cut back were, in the words of Senator William Proxmire, "just plain not inflationary."

The subcommittee, headed by Senator John J. Sparkman, Democrat of Alabama, completed two days of hearings into complaints of Mayors and other officials that funds needed for urban programs were being impounded by the Administration.

Mr. Weinberger, George Romney, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and other Administration witnesses disclosed for the first time the Administration's reasons for withholding the money. But their explanations did little to salve the growing resentments of urban interests.

CITIES OUTLAY FOR SST

"It is really a matter of priorities," Senator Proxmire, a Wisconsin Democrat, said after Mr. Romney asserted that Congress had put a ceiling on spending and had then appropriated more than the ceiling.

Mr. Proxmire said that Congress had appropriated $71-billion for defense but that the Administration was actually spending $73.4-billion, part from funds carried over from previous years. Yet, of the $4.3-billion appropriated for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Administration is withholding $1.3-billion, he said.

"And here you have $290-million for the SST," Senator Proxmire added. "What a lot that would do in housing, mass transit and highways."

Of the $8-billion being withheld, the Administration spokesman said that about $5-billion was in highway construction funds, more than $1-billion in military construction and the rest in other programs such as public works, rural renewal, public housing, and water and sewer grants.

DEBT LIMIT A FACTOR

Mr. Weinberger cited several technical reasons for withholding the funds. One was the debt ceiling, which Congress is in the process of raising. Despite the prospect of a higher ceiling, he said, "the existing ceiling represents a legal constraint which must be accepted."

But it was the inflation factor that led the Administration to withhold construction funds rather than others, he said. He said that construction costs, largely because of higher wage settlements, had risen much faster than costs in the rest of the economy.

This, he said, "explains the higher reserves for Federal construction programs and the President's recent action in suspending the Davis-Bacon Act." The Davis-Bacon Act, in effect, requires contractors on Federal projects to pay top wage rates.

Mr. Proxmire, who is chairman of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, replied that unemployment in the construction industry was 11 to 12 per cent and that the rise in wages was not a result of demand but a sparsity of work in off seasons.

In no sense, he added, could the urban programs in question be inflationary. Mr. Weinberger insisted that they were, that more money for construction was "feeding the fires of what is already a bad area."

Mr. Romney, under questioning by Senator Alan Cranston, Democrat of California, denied that some of the money was withheld to make more available next year for Mr. Nixon's program of sharing revenue with the states and cities.

"Contrary to widespread reports," he said, "we are not withholding funds commensurate with revenue sharing."

But he also said that the Administration was not stepping up programs that are to be converted to revenue sharing under Mr. Nixon's proposal. Under special revenue sharing, money for a number of existing programs would be lumped together under broad grants for such purposes as education and urban development, giving the localities wide latitude as to their use.

Noting that the Administration was not spending $200-million of the amount appropriated for water and sewer facilities, Mr. Romney said, "As in the case of urban renewal, we do not intend to accelerate a program scheduled for termination."

The special revenue-sharing proposal would take effect next Jan. 1. Under the urban development section, local governments could, if they wished, take money that has been going for model cities and put it into water and sewer facilities, or vice versa.

But the Mayors are doubtful that Congress will enact the Nixon proposal and have been seeking assurances that the existing programs will be funded in the amounts appropriated by Congress.

[From The Evening Star, Washington, D.C., Apr. 7, 1971]

AIDE SAYS NIXON MAY MOVE TO RELEASE FROZEN FUNDS
(By Paul Hope)

An administration official said today the White House probably will move soon to ease a hot controversy with Congress over frozen funds by releasing some of the $12 billion that has been tied up.

The White House official said the impounding of the money has caused more individual complaints on Capitol Hill than any other issue.

Democratic leaders in both the Senate and House have demanded that President Nixon release the money that has been appropriated for highways, public works projects, urban renewal, model cities and public housing.

Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey, D-Minn., yesterday charged that it is unconstitutional for Nixon to freeze funds appropriated "for the general welfare." The administration has justified its freeze by claiming it was done to fight inflation and to stay within budget limits set by Congress.

CONTROVERSY HURTS PROGRAM

The White House official, who predicted release of some of the money within the next 45 days, said the controversy is making it more difficult to get votes for other Nixon programs.

Discussing prospects of the Nixon legislative program in general, the official also made these statements:

General revenue sharing will be passed but under some other name.
Welfare reform will be enacted by Sept. 1.

Despite differences with House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Wilbur Mills, 90 percent of the Nixon program under that committee's jurisdiction will be passed by the end of 1972.

The White House has started "intensive work" to get support in the Senate for Nixon's anti-ballistic missile program.

White House officials hope that any bill to limit campaign spending will contain provisions for measuring and limiting the money and manpower effort put into campaigns by labor unions. The official said he didn't know whether Nixon would approve a bill that doesn't contain some sort of limitation on unions.

The official saw the President's recent meeting with black Democratic congressmen as an opportunity for the administration to point out its accomplishments in the field of civil rights.

He said the White House intends to submit a response in writing to each of the 60 points raised by the black congressmen.

"The blacks have given us more opportunity to get publicity on our accomplishments on civil rights. Our record is amazingly good," he said.

He said that while the response to many of the points raised by the blacks will be "positive," the administration will have to point out that some of their demands will be impossible to fulfill because of lack of money. He said a preliminary estimate of the cost of all the demands is $101 billion annually. Discussing Nixon's general revenue sharing plan, the official indicated the White House will settle for a program that helps the states and localities financially even if it doesn't follow the lines of Nixon's program.

The official said he believes Mills does want to provide relief to the states and localities. He mentioned specifically the possibility of enacting something like tax credits, which would accomplish the same purpose as revenue sharing by allowing taxpayers to deduct state and local income taxes from their federal tax bills. This would encourage states and local governments to raise their own money.

[From The Sunday Star, Washington, D.C., Apr. 4, 1971]

IMPOUNDING FUNDS: THE QUESTION IS POWER

(By James J. Kilpatrick)

One of these years, I keep telling myself, I will retire to the mountains, feed a last sheet of copy paper into this battered Underwood, and undertake to distill a lifetime of political observation into a single sentence of political truth. The sentence will read: The question is power.

That is what the game is all about. We are seeing it in a new form in Washington these days-actually a very old form-in the inchoate confrontation between Congress and the White House on this matter of the impoundment of appropriated funds. Senator Sam Ervin, D-N.C., has been holding some mild hearings. The White House has dispatched a spokesman to make a mild response. There is not much drama thus far.

Yet the issue is important. One of the fundamental powers of the Congress is the power of the purse. It is the power to raise funds-to lay and collect taxes, to borrow money, to coin money. It is equally the power to say how the taxpayers' money shall be spent. "No money shall be drawn from the treasury," says the Constitution, "but in consequences of appropriations made by law."

It follows from that stricture that appropriations are in fact laws; and the Constitution also says, in defining the powers and duties of a Chief Executive, that the President "shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed."

A specific example may clarify the kind of impasse that develops. Consider, if you please, the Florida barge canal. Critics of the project see it as something more than a mere boondoggle; they see it as an absolute disaster, threatening the delicate ecology of the Everglades. Defenders of the project, such as the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce, hold a different view; they see the canal as a significant economic benefit, and they regard the environmental arguments as vastly overblown.

Put the merits to one side. The point is that Congress has decided the issue explicitly in favor of the proponents. Congress repeatedly has made appropriations for building the canal. These appropriations are "laws" as surely as the laws appropriating funds to pay a President's salary; they are laws manifesting a specific congressional intent.

But on Jan. 19, by executive order, Mr. Nixon simply nullified the laws appropriating money for the Florida barge canal. Acting on the recommendation of Dr. Russell Train, chairman of his Council on Environmental Quality, the President imposed an effective veto. Does the duty to execute the laws embrace a power to nullify the laws? If so, what dignity and purpose attach to congressional appropriations in the first place?

Consider a different hypothesis. Suppose it were President Proxmire in the White House; he is a steadfast opponent of federal funding of a supersonic