In 2012, when Barack Obama won reelection, an odd but thrilling metaphor engulfed me. The election was like the climax of one of those early Howard Fast novels. After enduring months of derision of their leader as somehow unAmerican and countless maneuvers to curtail their right to vote and incessant tirades against the poor for taking, not giving, after enduring all the despicable attempts to belittle and suppress them, the poor and the blacks and the Hispanics and the young and the women united and arose to defend their hero and astound and frighten all the smug fat cats. “What a wonderful thing is metaphor,” wrote Christopher Fry in one of his plays. Well, so much for metaphor...

If American elections made sense, the selection of Congressman Paul Ryan as the Republican vice presidential candidate would be universally regarded as about as foolish a move as the selection of Sarah Palin four years ago. By no stretch of logic can any reasonable analyst justify the choice. Mitt Romney is so bland and clunky a candidate that for a long while we all have had a tough time figuring him out. He has been running around crying out that he is a rip-snorting genuine extreme conservative, but it was hard to take him at his word. It all sounded like election hooey. After all, he was a somewhat decent governor of Massachusetts who gave us Romneycare the model for Obamacare. A lot of people felt that once elected he would revert to his innate blandness. They also probably felt that his innate blandness might even turn into innate goodness. The embrace of Ryan changes all that...

My wife says that President Obama’s negotiations with Congressional Republicans reminded her of the story of my bargaining session with a merchant on the island of Zanzibar more than forty years ago. I spent two hours bargaining with him for a Zanzibar chest and ended up paying more than he originally asked. It’s not an unfair comparison. The tawdry turmoil of the last few weeks over an increase in the national debt ceiling left me with some broken images. One is the weakness of what we all used to regard as the most powerful office in any democracy on earth. Has it become so weak that it can be held hostage by an imbecilic faction in the Republican Party? I suppose so...

It is hard to disagree with Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana about the sorry state of Congress. It is gripped by “institutional inertia,” it is not doing “the people’s business,” and it “must be reformed.” But his decision to run away from the Senate will not ease the paralysis. In fact, if a Republican takes Bayh’s seat, the woes will probably worsen. In a piece for the New York Times, Senator Bayh listed a host of congressional problems, including ultra partisanship, campaign financing, gerrymandering, lack of personal contact, and endless filibusters. The last problem, surely the most outrageous, should be the easiest to fix. Yet I am not sure there is much of a chance to do so...

I covered the House of Representatives for the Associated Press for a year or so during the 1960s and left with profound respect and affection for what is really a unique American institution. For years as a foreign correspondent I would extol the genius of our House against the lap dog role played by Houses in the parliamentary system used by democratic countries in Europe and former British dominions like Canada...

Medicare will be “the most sweeping new departure in American Social legislation since Roosevelt’s Social Security Act thirty years ago.” That description, culled from one of the many news accounts of House passage of the bill, already has deadened into a cliché. All analysts have accepted the fact of medicare’s great impact, but very few have bothered to delve into the details of that impact. How will America and medicine change after medicare? Only a fool would try to predict this with certainty. A bill, especially one 296 pages long, has byways and tremors and lurking commas that can twist society in a manner no one anticipates. Yet some trends can be spotted ahead of time. Medicare has the potential to confirm doctors’ fears that federal pressures will change the way they practice medicine. It also has the potential to stuff a financial bonanza into the pockets of America’s fat-cat doctors...

Harry and Sadie, a mythical American couple have pencils in hand trying to figure out how much they will save if Congress vote for a tax cut. A tax bill comes before the House on Tuesday. If the House passes it and then the Senate passes it and President Kennedy signs it - and no one changes it along the way - this is what a tax cut will mean. Harry, a schoolteacher, earns $6000 a year. Sadie, in her spare moments while taking care of two children, makes and sells dresses to neighbors for a profit of $1500 a year...

Is President Kennedy’s legislative program stuck in the bogs of Congress? Some critics say so. The White House and Democratic leaders say it isn’t. Congress has passed July 31 - the suggested legal date for adjournment - with only a few bills of substance to show for it. This session will go on at least to Thanksgiving and perhaps to Christmas, the longest spell since the Congress of 1950. “It seems to me that on the basis of the record to date” said Sen. Jacob K Javits, R-N.Y., in a recent Senate speech “we are assigning ourselves a unique niche in history as the biggest and longest running, slow-motion show to hit Washington in years. And I believe we are in grave danger of seeing ourselves dubbed the 'standstill' Congress, or worse. ” Speaker John W. McCormack of Massachusetts disagrees...

Investigators of the Securities and Exchange Commission criticized the mechanics and policing of America's stock exchanges Wednesday and recommended dozens of sweeping changes. The scope of the criticism and the proposals was unexpected. The recommendations would do away with personal floor trading, put more restrictions on stock specialists and odd-lot traders, and give the SEC more supervision over the vast over-the-counter market in the United States. William L. Cary, chairman of the SEC, sent the five-volume, 14-pound, 2100-page report to Congress. "We expect to send a letter within the next few clays detailing our views on the specific recommendations," he told Congress. But Cary did say: "This report should not impair public confidence in the securities markets, but should strengthen it as suggestions for raising standards are put into practice." Prices on the New York Stock Exchange slumped badly as soon as the news from the capital reached New York. Some traders on Wall Street said they were shocked at the proposals...

President Kennedy asked members of Congress on Wednesday to look into their hearts and help end "rancor, violence, disunity and national shame" by passing the most sweeping civil rights bill since Reconstruction days. And he told them to stay in session this year until they do so. His proposals drew a favorable reaction in Congress. But Southerners served notice of a filibuster and threatened to tie up his entire legislative program. Liberal forces in both parties praised the proposals. But key Republicans who may hold the balance of power took a cautious approach. The President's plea came in a special message that accompanied a bill brimming with weapons against racial discrimination in stores, hotels and other public places, in schools, in jobs, in polling booths. He asked for a law banning discrimination by any privately owned enterprise that serves the public. He asked power for the Attorney General to start school desegregation court suits on his own. He asked for a massive program to train unskilled Negroes and others for higher paying jobs. He asked for the right to withhold Federal aid from a project when local officials discriminate against Negroes. He asked for much other legislation. And, in a real sense, he may have asked for one of the great legislative battles in American history...

Sometimes a Congressman casts a vote that eventually puts money in his own purse. If he found someone else in government making a self-serving decision like that, the congressman would arch his brow, pound his fist and bellow. The cry of "conflict of interest" would resound against the walls. But no one, or at least hardly any one, arches, pounds, or bellows when the congressman casts his vote. There are 535 members of Congress. Of these, 315 are lawyers, some still allied with active, lucrative law firms representing a host of different clients. Thirty-three congressmen have some form of interest in banks, trust companies, or savings & loan associations. Twenty-three congressmen or their families have some sort of interest in radio or television stations. A handful of members are farmers, voting on farm legislation. Far more than a handful own stocks, sometimes in heavy amounts, in interests ranging from oil to soda water...

[Chief Justice Earl Warren has called for a great national debate on three proposed constitutional amendments. In this last of three articles, Stanley Meisler discusses the two amendments aimed at the Supreme Court.] Chief Justice Warren has chided lawyers for their silence about three constitutional amendments. Warren's irritation is not surprising. Two of the amendments are aimed right at his court. "For the bar of America to be as inactive as it has been in this situation," he said recently, "is almost an abdication of its responsibility to the public." As head of the Supreme Court, Warren did not take a position on the amendments, but he clearly was concerned that, with little or no debate, sixteen state legislatures had approved at least one of three amendments. If any amendment wins support from 34 states, Congress must call a national convention to accept or reject it...

[Chief Justice Earl Warren has called for a great national debate on three proposed constitutional amendments that have quietly slipped through sixteen state legislatures. One of these amendments would change the way of amending the Constitution. In this second of three articles, Stanley Meisler analyzes this amendment.] States righters quietly trying to push three new amendments into the United States Constitution have a long, rocky, weaving road ahead. Without fanfare, the legislatures of sixteen states have approved resolutions asking congress to call a national convention to consider these amendments aimed at curtailing the powers of the Federal Government. But the states vary in their likes and dislikes, and not all sixteen have voted for the same amendments. Only one amendment so far has attracted as many as twelve states. The states righters need at least 34 states to take a long first step on the rough constitutional road...

[Chief Justice Earl Warren has taken America's lawyers to task for remaining silent while sixteen states approved at least one of three proposed states rights amendments to the United Slates Constitution. In this first of three articles, Stanley Meisler describes the strange, silent drive behind these amendments aimed at curtailing Federal Government powers.] Without trumpeting or the beating of drums, sixteen states have slipped into a strange, silent parade to amend the United States Constitution and curtail the power of the Federal Government. These states have approved at least one of three proposed constitutional amendments designed by men piqued at the United States Supreme Court and alarmed at the ballooning power of Washington. "If proposals of this magnitude had been made in the early days of the Republic," Chief Justice Earl Warren said recently, ''the voices of the lawyers of that time would have been heard from one end of our land to the other." Warren has called for a great national debate, and, of late, a chorus of opposition has started to sound...

Many congressmen grumble about the seniority system in Congress, but few want to do anything about it. In 1811, a freshman, Henry Clay of Kentucky, was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives. That could not happen today. Time has clamped a tradition of seniority on Congress. No new congressman dares dream now of reaching the cores of power and influence without waiting his turn in a long line. As usual Congress opened this year with voices both inside and out calling for change. The voices include those of former President Dwight D. Eisenhower and reportedly President Kennedy...

In 1914 when Carl Vinson, a 31-year-old Democrat from Georgia, came to Congress for the first time, the entire staff was made up of one secretary, paid $125 a month. The law allowed him and all other congressmen no more. Today Vinson has four members on his staff. The average representative is allowed to hire up to nine at an overall cost of $4000 a month. The average senator usually hires more. And so may the congressional committees. In a rush to keep pace with the onslaught of modern pressures, Congress has created its own private bureaucracy that now numbers more than 7,000 people and costs more than $50 million a year. There’s a chance it soon will get bigger and costlier. This week the House will debate a proposal, approved by its Administration Committee, to increase the office expenses of each congressman by $10,506 a year so he can add still another employee to his payroll. The huge bureaucracy on Capitol Hill has provoked criticism particularly from Sen. Allen J. Ellender, D-La., who leads a futile fight each year to wipe out a good number of the Senate's subcommittee staffs...

[EDITOR'S NOTE - Although the United States owns more than $3.8-billion worth of foreign currencies, it often has to dip into its own gold supply to meet expenditures abroad.] Rep. Adam Clayton Powell, D-N.Y., squired two good-looking, female assistants to the Lido night club in Paris last summer and paid his way with U.S.-owned francs. The night on the town provoked outcries back home. Powell had a quick defense. He quoted Secretary of the Treasury Douglas Dillon as saying if Powell and other congressmen didn't use these francs the U. S. government would have to burn them. "This is money going right down the drain," Powell said. Dillon said he had no recollection of making the remarks and added that he felt these funds "require the same prudent management and careful handling as any other moneys of the government." In fact, other administration officials say that most times that a congressman uses funds like these, he forces the United States to buy more foreign currencies with American dollars. Powell's night on the town, the outcry, his defense, and the denial by Dillon reflect one of the most complex and massive problems in American international finance... [article also published in the Congressional Record Appendix, 13 March 1963, p. A1354]

For some Americans, an end to income taxes. For most, a cut. For a handful, a boost That’s the meaning of President Kennedy’s proposed tax changes. And for 6,500,000 Americans, the changes also would mean a shift in the way they figure out their income taxes. These 6,500,000 taxpayers would be nudged from itemizing their deductions into taking the standard 10 per cent deduction. For them this would make the tax cut less juicy than it might have been. No taxpayer should expect these changes to stuff his pockets with dollars overnight. President Kennedy said he does not want the changes to start until later this year and take full effect until 1965. And they won’t take effect at all if Congress doesn’t approve them...

The 88th Congress opened for business Wednesday and dealt sudden death to conservative members' hopes of recapturing control of the key House Rules Committee. This victory for President Kennedy had been expected, but the size of his margin was a surprise. On the decisive vote in the House, his supporters won 235-196. The vote kept the size of the Rules Committee at 15 members. If Kennedy's forces had failed, it would have reverted to 12 members, leaving the committee in the grip of a coalition of conservative Republicans and Southern Democrats opposed to major elements of Kennedy's legislative program. The committee, which controls the flow of most legislation to the floor of the House, had been under the domination of this coalition until two years ago...