European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - February 8, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes saturday february 8,1986 letters Tom Wicker Gramm Rudman cure is worse than deficit disease the Best thing Congress and president Reagan could do about the Gramm Rudman deficit reduction plan is to repeal it. As for the deficit itself Congress could stretch out not necessarily reduce the presi Dent s military buildup while the Federal Reserve Board eases monetary policy. But Reagan has sent Congress a 1987 budget calling Tor a 6.2 percent increase in military spending and meeting the $144 billion deficit limit set by Gramm Rudman. Without a tax increase. That would require such drastic cuts in the is per cent of the budget that is not devoted to interest Mili tary spending and entitlement programs that no one but the president and perhaps not even he gives it a Chance. Instead democrats and republicans alike Are talking or an Only marginally preferable plan to meet the Gramm Rudman limits with More sensible but still severe spending reductions in both Domestic and military programs plus a tax increase. The problems with that approach Are that a it in t necessary and b it could be disastrous Tor the Economy. It int necessary because the Federal budget deficit while too Large does not pose a National crisis that can Only be met with such extraordinary Steps As those provided in Gramm Rudman nor docs it require the undoing of major social programs and an end to the military buildup. It does not dictate a tax increase either although a properly constructed Energy tax might be Good policy Lor other reasons. The conventional Wisdom imitating Chicken Little proclaims the sky is about to fall owing to deficits in the s200 billion Range. In fact if the deficit were corrected for inflation As it should be its practical effect would be seen As far less damaging than such figures suggest. If for example the supposed deficits of the Carter administration totalling si53 billion were so corrected they would be seen instead As an accumulated surplus of $72 billion. If moreover the Federal government maintained As it should a capital budget its yearly operating deficit would be substantially smaller much of the supposed deficit actually is investment. And the Federal govern ment s total debt of about $2 trillion is offset by its roughly $2 trillion in real assets and another trillion in Gold securities Loans Cash Trust funds Etc. These facts have been detailed by Robert Eisner professor of economics at Northwestern University in several articles in the new York times and the Washington Post. They will be repeated in his forthcoming Book How real is the Federal deficit his arguments were cited in this space in August 1984, and George will omit Leoon to Nohh ii  Afik several times since. I have not seen them refuted any where. But even if you take today s deficits at face value another economist Robert Heilbroner pointed out in the july 30, 1984, Issue of the new yorker they re running at Only about 5 percent of Gross National product. At the height of world War 11, the Federal deficit was 25 percent of Gnu and helped bring on a postwar period of unparalleled economic growth. Not Only is draconian deficit reduction unnecessary it could be an economic disaster. To reduce the deficit in fiscal 1987 by say s35 billion to $40 billion by spending cuts tax increases or both is to take that much out of an already nervous Economy. To do it a year or two in a Row could shut Down economic growth. To do it every year for the next five As dictated by Gramm Rudman would create a huge real budget sur plus that could bring on a terrible recession. What does need to be done is to stretch out military spending Over three or four additional years without necessarily cutting Back the total planned buildup unless for reasons other than the deficit. An easing of monetary policy by the Federal Reserve Board would encourage economic growth and have a Down Ward effect on inheres a rates and the strength of the Dollar. That would attack the pressing problem of the United states Trade deficit and allow Congress to con Sider spending reductions and a possible tax increase on their merits not As a panic reaction to a Strawman deficit. Interest rates after All and inflation and the Dollar and unemployment have fallen despite the size of re cent and projected Federal budget deficits c now York tymm judge Bird ignores the beast that May devour her it is depressing that California s chief Justice looks so fetching. Rose Bird has a new Hairdo to please the Public in november. Judges decisions often Are the ingredient thai causes american politics to ferment the most vinegary vote of 1986 will be a decision about retaining Bird for a 12-year term. Thirty nine states have some form of voting on judges but California s populist tradition is especially virulent. This year she and three other Liberal justices face a fierce Campaign to unseat them through a mandatory reconfirmation vote. Califor Nia s system could be worse. Until 1934 it was worse because there were contested elections for judges. But in a state this size a plebiscite requires a seriously challenged judge to raise More perhaps much More than $1 million. That is unavoidably unseemly. And How can a judge Campaign not by making promises about future cases. And professional ethics prohibit Public dissection of pre Vious decision making. Critics can be specific an embattled judge must be general. Bird is an incorrigible Liberal and hence must Praise the idea of the peo ple being involved and the More democracy the merrier. So she seems philosophical about the process that probably will culminate in a resounding defeat for her. Philosophic and fatalistic. She says the judicial Branch is an aristocratic and hierarchical Branch grafted onto a democratic tree. It is an Arena of close reasoning about technical matters that Are hard for the Public to compre Hend. Furthermore in our wired nation the Public has a shrinking attention Span. People Are comfortable Only with communication served up in Brier visual bursts. So the Public finds courts where the writ ten word reigns increasingly alien. All that May be somewhat True. But it does not explain the Bird Contro Versy. Californians Are hardly promiscuous about defeating justices. If Bird loses she will be the first to lose. But in 1978 she got just 51.7 percent of the vote. Since then she has poured kerosene on the hot Issue that energizes her enemies capital punishment. Since a constitutional death penalty Law was enacted in 1977, More than 200 death sentences have been imposed but there s not been a single execution. Bird has voted to reverse the death sentence in every Case that has come before her. Critics charge that her personal abhor rence of the death penalty impels her to discover invent really procedural errors in pretrial trial and sentencing stages of every Case. When she says for example that a death sentence is invalid if the jury did not include aliens As Well As citizens even her friends Roll their eyes heavenward. But her critics Are wrong to Call her cynical. Her problem is a destructive earnestness that is characteristic of overripe liberalism an irrational commitment to an Ideal of social rationality. Her defend ers Are being facile when they celebrate her  extreme Independence from the Community s values be comes in a judge an injudicious wilful Ness. Mickey Kaus whose father is one of Bird s colleagues and who clerked for an other judge on her court identifies her philosophy As Liberal  it fears above All else arbitrary govern ment and would prevent it by purifying procedures process process and More process in the form of hearings lawyers and Ever More refined evidentiary rules and More exacting burdens of  Kaus believes that some of Bird s civil decisions Are More disturbing than her decisions in criminal cases. She claims heretofore unknown Powers to discern and disapprove legislative irrationality " he says. She would have struck Down proposition 13 because that Initia Tive rolled Back property assessments Only for people who bought their Homes before a certain Date. She said this Date Wai presumably any Date would have been arbitrary so the Law overwhelmingly passed by plebiscite must  her Rov ing commission to extirpate arbitrary f Ness gives her judicial activism extraordinary sweep. As liberalism became Lazy and arro a Gant and then weak and unpopular. It v retreated from political Arenas to courts. There it now is besieged and disarmed. Having won most of its recent political. Victories on race abortion capital punishment in courts it cannot convincingly decry the politicizing of courts. But Bird does decry it. She believes she has not been political Only rational and her sincerity gives her a kind of crazy Brav " Ery. A judge on her court has said that the requirement that judges must face the a electorate is like a Crocodile in your Tate tub it is hard to ignore. Give Bird her  due. She has been almost magnificent in � her disregard of the beast that is going of devour her. C 1916 Wuh Nolon poll  group to Jujj of Ollom or i a in Iho Courim and dirt conf Jon in m of re print Inonu omm Hulhon my to to no Way lot  u Narni Ellra it a a of the sunk sir Len or in. Unland sum Vowrn