European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - February 4, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes tuesday. February 4,1986 columns & comments James Kilpatrick Gramm Rudman Hollings lacks the human touch \ More than 300 reporters turned out recently for a press briefing on the first round of blows under the Gramm Rudman Hollings deficit reduction act. I have attended some strange press con Terence Over the past 45 years but this one was in a class by itself. Nobody spoke much English. Of the words were English words Allright but the words had been robbed of meaning. Nobody spoke in terms of Bil Lions of dollars or millions of dollars or even thousands of dollars. They All spoke a kind of pidgin Point talk. What s the present guess on outlays for the current fiscal year nine Hundred ninety six Point  what about reve Nues seven  so the deficits right. Two Twenty Point five less the eleven seven being sequestered for Anet of two of High Point eight. That s against the target of one seventy one  they were talking about billions of Dol Lars. Billions i cannot comprehend even is billion let alone $996.5 billion an that was All they talked about for a solid hour. They tossed around billions. The Only figure i understood in an Inch thick document was a Cut of $5,000 in funds for maintaining vice president Bush s official residence out at the naval Observatory. This i could grasp. Hard times George but we must All make do. The purpose of the press Confer ence was to announce $11.7 billion in sequestration from the current fiscal budget. Half the cuts come from defense half from non defense. The Law mandates. These cuts for fiscal 1986 because the anticipated deficit of $220 billion far exceeds the target fixed by the act. To arrive at the cuts item by item the office of management and budget and the congressional budget office put to Gether a list of 3,500 accounts for nation Al defense and about 800 accounts for non defense. Together bomb and co estimated probable outlays for these accounts. Then across the Board they multiplied these probable outlays by a Factor of 4.9 for defense and 4.3 for non de sense. You Wilt understand that no judgments whatever entered into this process. Byway of example estimated outlays for the National botanical Garden were Carl Rowan Tramm Redmon $2,060,000. The Cut is $80,000. The department of agriculture had expected to spend $401 million on research. It will spend $17.2 million less. The National Park services had a budget of $502 Mil lion s21.6 million has now been sequestered. It is this aspect of the act that is so maddening. There is no human responsibility anywhere. Congress did not decree these particular cuts in spending. The president did not order them. Bomb and co had no discretion. Who did it the computer did it computers Are the most obedient de vices Ever invented but they have no political judgment. The computer got to budget of $3.2 billion for the internal Revenue service. It multiplied 3.2 by 4.3, and behold the budget for the irs will be Cut by $139 million including $100 million for examination and collection of income tax. Now this is dumb. Stupid. Incredible. Irs agents produce roughly $8 i Revenue for every $1 of their expenses. In any sensible allocation of Federal funds the irs would not get $100 million less. It would get $100 million More but this dumb act does not work that Way. Thus the computer hummed away. It killed $792,000 in books for the Blind $176,000 in maintenance of the Whitehouse $4.4 million for the peace corps and $7 million at the Bureau of the Cen sus. The computer nibbled away at flood control along the Mississippi at Indian health  education at the naval Pictro icum Reserve at the Bureau of Mana the Fri will be Cut by $45.milliofl, Dru enforcement by $14.6 million. The con i Puter knocked 4.3 percent off budgets cd rail safety Highway safety air safety am boat safety. The commission on i famine and the Christopher col qui Centenary Jubilee commission their lumps As Well. These cuts added up to Sll was about to write Only $11.7 Alloi but that is pidgin Point talk it j p awesome amount of Money. But Yon ton what to get to the 1987 target of $14" billion deficit the computer will Haw t make cuts of at least $50 billion. As a Jolson used to say you Ain t teen nothing  Fri Pumi Sam Sci in a trip to South Carolina would do Meese Good sometimes a person just stumbles into a set Ting that makes him feel really Good about America. I have done that by walking into a luncheon at Hilton head s.c., where i am to address members of the South Carolina bar association about terrorism budget deficits immigration and other concerns of the nation s capital. A White lawyer from the state capital Columbia tells me apropos of nothing that i am to be the first Black to address this group in All its 101  i try not to appear impressed but i am for reasons far beyond his remark. I see the chief Justice and other Mem Ben of the South Carolina supreme court and their wives. Judges of the family courts. And members of the general Assembly an institution that once worked overtime passing Laws designed to preserve rigid racial segregation. I see an audience perhaps 80 percent White and 20 percent Black of people who Are the Backbone of the Power Structure in South Carolina. And i see at the head table 43-year-old is. Leevy Johnson a Columbia lawyer who was one of the first three Black people elected to the general Assembly in his state since the turn of the Century Tod is the first Black president Ever of the South Carolina bar How remarkable i whisper to myself. I am remembering that january Day in 1951 when i went to Charleston s.c., to visit j. Waties Waring former Captain of the Charleston Light dragoons scion of eight generations of Charleston aristocracy son of a Confederate Veteran but by then hated and ostracized socially by White South carolinians because fed eral judge Waring had ruled that Blacks must be Al Lowed to vote in the state s previously All White primary Twenty one thousand persons had signed petition calling for judge Waring impeachment the g arg Peac Penthouse of representatives had voted Sll fijo to finance impeachment proceedings also voting funds to bul Waring and he wife one Way tickets out of the state what a contrast Between " proud of these changes flowing out of his  then i thought of another contrast that Between what these people in South Carolina were doing s3what attorney Genera Edwin Meese Iii and  Bradford Reynolds i were trying to Wason in South Carolina the people who Man the ramparts of Justice Are working to put far behind them T which racism and assorted throats americans who de big tries put attach Stert should have been working to Gether to produce better lives for All in the state. Washington. 35 years after my visit to utojwar1 Meese and Reynolds Are tossing around cliches  by reverse discrimination quotas unfair Lewhite males by Way of trying to undo All the i provoked by courageous men like judge Waring. ,. Meese. Reynolds and others Are lashing out is judges who like Waring believe that the a Tion is not dry Parchment Tut a living Docura Speaks to judges today in a voice not known la i after my speech to the South Carolina bar / Tion i talked to a lot of lawyers and budget the lawyer would find that these people Are u their March away from Jim Crow. They Don t we clocks turned Back. They Don t want to revisit 11m ones is and hatreds that were so prevalent Juary 1951. A. South Carolina in t brimming Over Witt fit social and political Justice but it is Light ye5 irom 1951, mostly because that state and u have had some Wise leaders during the last 35 one White lawyer said to me we can t let Lead us Back into the old  f no we cannot. To my amt a Stid Cali