will tell you what the agencies asked for in the first place, what the factors were they considered, why they cut it, why they abolished this agency, what the reasoning was that went into the final figures-unless they will testify on those issues it is not of much help. If they are just going to tell you what the final figures are, you can read them in the printed budget.

Mr. ROSENTHAL. How will the passage of this legislation offer that opportunity?

Mr. BROOKS. It will give the Senate, somebody in this country other than the President of the United States, an opportunity to examine what kind of a man we are going to have with this tremendous power. We are not going to take away the President's authority to talk with him, to rely upon him, and to have him submit for him the documents on the budget that he wants to utilize.

I would be for this legislation under a Democratic President and, to my friend from New York, I wrote all of the members of this committee asking them if they would be interested in introducing this legislation, because, as I said then, in early February, I want to emphasize that this is not a partisan issue. The confirmation of high-level policymaking officials is an essential part of the checks and balances concept.

Mr. ROSENTHAL. Let me ask one other question. Mr. Ash also says, and I quote from his statement on page 6:

The point I am making here is that the only way that any President can have even a sporting chance of carrying out his constitutional mandate and his statutory responsibilities is to have help in the form of a neutral and trusted agent serving his needs.

What do you think of the President's sporting chance of meeting his constitutional responsibility?

Mr. BROOKS. I think the President has a pretty good sporting chance of meeting his constitutional responsibility. He has all of the press coverage that he wants. He has all of the staff that he asks for. He has all of the executive departments. He has about 44 percent of the Members of Congress.

He is doing pretty well by himself. I don't feel particularly sorry for him. Nobody that I have known has ever said that anybody is taking advantage of President Nixon. He is very competent to take care of himself.

Mr. ROSENTHAL. So you think that his opportunity for a sporting chance is pretty good?

Mr. BROOKS. The odds are pretty high. His sporting chances are about 10-to-1. I would like Congress to get to be about even.

Mr. ROSENTHAL. And that is the way the Constitution really intended it, isn't it?

Mr. BROOKS. I think that is what the Constitution intended.
Mr. ROSENTHAL. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman HOLIFIELD. Mr. Erlenborn?

Mr. ERLENBORN. No questions.

Chairman HOLIFIELD. Mr. Brown?

Mr. BROWN. Mr. Brooks, why did the original legislation which established this position, Director of the Bureau of the Budget, not require confirmation? Do you know?

Mr. BROOKS. It was created in 1921. It was then made part of the Treasury Department and was designed to serve as an institutional aid to the President in coordinating activities in managing the execution of programs and policies. In my judgment it was just not conceived of as being as significant and important as it has become.

And I would add one short comment. Under President Eisenhower, the Bureau of the Budget was increasingly powerful. But it was not anything like as powerful as it is now and there wasn't the conflict between it and the Congress although it was the same situation in that, after the first term, we had a Democratic Congress and a Republican President. I did not feel that it was tremendously difficult then. I didn't feel that the Bureau of the Budget had its clamp on the whole country.

It became more powerful under President Kennedy. It became more powerful under President Johnson. I want to be candid about this. This agency has evolved into a very important and powerful position. It was powerful under President Johnson. And I will tell you how powerful it was.

I knew the late President Johnson well. He was my beloved friend. When he swore in a new man, as Director of the Bureau of the Budget. do you know who would be down there for the ceremony? Me. And I would shake hands with that new Director of the Bureau of the Budget like I loved him even if I had never seen him. He was usually an accountant. I shook hands with him and said, "It's good to see you and I look forward to working with you," because I always had a few projects and programs I wanted approved by the Bureau of the Budget and I knew it was important to get to know him.

I haven't met Mr. Ash yet, I haven't even read his statement, but I will tell you budget directors have become increasingly important. Under this President, I guess you just bow down "Allah," because he is running the country with the President's help.

Mr. BROWN. Given your relationship with President Johnson, I am surprised you messed around with the Director of the Bureau of the Budget. I would think you would just go directly to the President. I don't know whether that is an argument for or against the confirmation of the present Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Is there, in that changing relationship, an area of more personal relationship with the President than would justify the executive privilege relationship? Did President Johnson have the kind of relationship with the Director of the Bureau of the Budget that would justify, perhaps, such a cloak of executive privilege?

Mr. BROOKS. I think the late President Johnson had a good rapport with his Bureau of the Budget Directors, as well as with his Cabinet officers, and I don't think there was any great distinction between them. I think he had great respect for his Directors of the Bureau of the Budget.

I don't think there is anything wrong with the concept that the Director of the Bureau of the Budget be considered as important a public figure as any Cabinet officer and that he should be confirmed by the Senate. It will do the man no harm, whomever they appoint or reappoint. It doesn't do any man any injustice. A man with a clear

conscience has no problem going before the U.S. Senate and getting confirmed. We confirm Republicans every day over there. It is not a partisan thing.

Mr. BROWN. You see no executive privilege cloak as would be involved in, say, Dr. Kissinger on foreign affairs?

Mr. BROOKS. I haven't considered Dr. Kissinger too closely in my analogy. I just don't know where they would place him. Chairman HOLIFIELD. Mr. Wright.

Mr. WRIGHT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Brooks, I want to congratulate you upon an excellent statement and in my opinion a very needed bill. As I understand it, you feel in your review of the initial act creating the Office of the Director of the Budget that it was intended to be an informative advisory position, not a policymaking position?

Mr. BROOKS. That is my feeling, Congressman.

Mr. WRIGHT. Could there be any doubt whatever that it has emerged into a very powerful policymaking position of government?

Mr. BROOKS. There is no doubt whatsoever in my mind or the mind of anybody with whom I have a high regard as to their knowledge of what goes on in government. It is perfectly obvious.

Mr. WRIGHT. Isn't it true that every department head who is confirmed by the Senate finds at times that the Director of the OMB has chopped some of his fingers off in some of the things he wants to do?

Mr. BROOKS. I think if I were the department head, I would be shaking hands with that Director of the Bureau of Management and Budget about once a week.

Mr. WRIGHT. Isn't it a well-known fact that various department heads who do have to be confirmed by the Senate, on the constitutional presumption that they are policymaking people, have to prepare a budget and then be very quiet about their budget request until the OMB has had the opportunity to say yes or no on it?

Mr. BROOKS. That is my understanding of the way it operates; yes, sir.

Mr. WRIGHT. Isn't it also true that those of us in Congress, when we introduce a bill which would authorize some program or activity on the part of the Government, routinely must wait until the proposal has gone to the Director of the OMB and he has said that he has no objection to such a program, before we act upon it one way or the other?

Mr. BROOKS. That is also correct. Tragically correct.

Mr. WRIGHT. And so the OMB has emerged then, perhaps simply by the accretion of more and more power, as an advisory office not only to the President but one to the Congress?

Mr. BROOKS. He does advise.

Mr. WRIGHT. And have you had examples, as I have had, Jack, of times when you or I or some other Members of the Congress may have introduced a bill and we just have to wait around, sometimes for as long as 18 months, before we can ever get a report back through the executive agencies approved by the Director of the OMB that will permit us to act upon our own legislation?

Mr. BROOKS. This is absolutely true. This has happened under all administrations. The Director of the Bureau of the Budget, or OMB,

as it is now called, can, by delay or by the knife, do his best to kill and affect policies of this country and of the Congress. And they do that.

And I want to say, honestly, Jim, I had no problem whatsoever with Mr. Ash. I never met him. It is not a personal matter at all. Mr. WRIGHT. I haven't either. I think probably he would be a very fine person.

And your reference earlier to an accountant usually being in this office prompts me to say I certainly have nothing against accountants. I think they are fine people. But it strikes me, Jack that the people who comprise the Office of Management and Budget generally are slide-rule experts and people who know the price of everything but the value of nothing. They don't have the opportunity, as Members of Congress have to know what spending priorities and what urgent necessities the people at the grass roots feel. They are somewhat isolated and insulated from the people, aren't they?

Mr. BROOKS. I agree. They never run for office.

Mr. WRIGHT. They never run for office. They never have to be confirmed by anybody who does run for office and yet they sit there with this enormous power, wielding an ax or scalpel over the prostrated body politic, which is lying there being operated upon-sometimes not even knowing the identity of its surgeon.

Mr. BROOKS. They are what I describe as "happy surgeons."

Mr. WRIGHT. Jack, I agree with you about this. I just have one reservation. I want to ask if you have any comment on it. What is to keep a President from sending the name of a Director of OMB— that of a fairly bland, acceptable sort of a fellow-as kind of a decoy and then just surreptitiously installing somebody else who is really going to make the decisions? Hasn't there been some history of this kind of thing?

Let's be frank. The Senate confirms Cabinet officers, but I have the feeling increasingly that policy decisions are made not at the Cabinet level, but by private advisers who have been appointed without any confirmation. What is to keep this from happening?

Mr. BROOKS. Nothing would prevent the President from doing that, except common decency, and I would not impugn other than that to any President. I would think he would appoint a Director or has a Director of the Bureau of the Budget who will reflect his own attitudes and his own ideas. I would say if you have any trouble getting the hatchetman at the top, they have plenty in the secretary levels over there. It is a training ground for them. They are good at it.

Mr. WRIGHT. I thank the gentleman. I fully agree with him. Certainly, neither you nor I nor any member of the committee, would impugn the integrity or question the motivation of this or any other President. It is simply the fact that the Congress, too, needs an input into policymaking functions.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman HOLIFIELD. Mr. Mallary.

Mr. MALLARY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Brooks, as I understand the terms of the bill, within 30 days of its passage, should it pass, there would be the requirement for the confirmation of the present incumbent as Director of the OMB and the Deputy Director. Is that correct?

Mr. BROOKS. That is correct.

Mr. MALLARY. Do you have any concern about the fact that by doing this we might be requiring, or might be providing a way to remove an officer who has been appointed under the current terms of the law; therefore, establishing a precedent for congressional interference or involvement in the removal of the executive officers?

Mr. BROOKS. I would say, Mr. Mallary, that I am aware that the administration proposes to challenge the constitutionality of the bill on that ground. But the issue was debated on the Senate floor when the bill was under consideration there and the U.S. Senate found no constitutional problem. My language is essentially the same as that which was passed in the Senate. I agree with the majority of the Senators that, basically, there is no constitutional problem about the bill.

However, I would be willing to make any changes in the bill that would clarify the issue but, at the same time, would preserve the objective of the legislation. I am working on some language that I will submit to the committee for your deliberation that might resolve this problem for those who think that a problem does exist.

The language I am working on would abolish the present Offices of the Director and the Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget and create two new offices of a similar nature for which new appointments would be necessary. This would avoid the problem of removing an incumbent from office by legislation.

The other language that I am working on to submit to you-I will send it over for you to take a look at, probably tomorrow or the next day, maybe today-would vest most of the functions of the OMB directly in the Director. Many of these functions are presently vested in the President as the result of two reorganization plans, even though Congress originally vested such functions in OMB's predecessor, the Bureau of the Budget. I think we should restore these functions in the Agency where the Congress originally intended them to be.

Mr. MALLARY. Perhaps this is off the immediate subject of confirmation, but do I understand that you propose to submit legislation that would provide for the abolition of these two positions and for the creation of substitute positions with a slightly different title, but similar responsibilities?

Mr. BROOKS. And vesting in that new organization the full functions of an OMB.

Mr. MALLARY. Such as those powers which existed before the reorganization plans?

Mr. BROOKS. That is correct. It would place all of those powers where they belong. OMB exercises those powers now, but to structurally put them together, so under the law they have that as a function makes

sense.

Mr. MALLARY. I might merely suggest, and I won't pursue it at this point, that we have the opportunity to look at and examine the suggestions.

Mr. BROOKS. I will get it to you very shortly.

Mr. MALLARY. But, by abolition of positions and creation of similar new ones, we might be able to establish essentially the same precedent. we are confronted with in this after-the-fact confirmation.