The New Realities Of Power
When President Ford drew his magic marker on the chart representing the potential size of this yearÛªs budget deficit and said, ÛÏI draw the lineÛ against further red-ink spending, it was more than the gesture-of-the-week his television advisers now provide with every presidential utterance.</br></br>It was, in addition, a symbol of the altered relationship between Congress and Chief Executive which has developed since the twin cataclysms of 1974 ÛÓthe resignation of Richard Nixon and the election of the heavily Democratic, post-Watergate Congress.</br></br>It is a relationship in which initiative and, one is tempted to say, control have passed from the Executive to the Legislative Branch; in which Congress is on the offensive and the President is responding as best he can.</br></br>Whether one considers this a calamity or a matter for congratulation depends, of course, on whether one dreads or delights in the work of Congress. As Arthur M. Schlesinger åÇtr. noted long ago, ÛÏThe question of tne distribution of power between the President and the Congress, in foreign as well as in domestic affairs, is a matter not of right or wrong but of practical results.Û</br></br>In practice, it is not at all clear whether Mr. Ford can in fact ÛÏdraw the lineÛ on this Congress. Certainly, he cannot dictate to it. It has been a triumph of public relations, but little else, for Mr. Ford to create the impression during the past two months that he was whipping Congress on to pass a tax cut.