European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - February 22, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes saturday february 22, 1906 columns & comments Carl Rowan defense accept Fec common welfare rejected in his five years As president Ronald Reagan has been consistent about one thing he has forced us to revive the Cen Turies old debate about the purposes and i he role of inc National government. Reagan has made it Clear that he is no Thumas Jefferson viewing the care of human life and happiness As the first and Only legitimate object of Good govern  the framers of the Constitution went far beyond the Reagan mentality when they wrote 199 years ago in the preamble hut to purposes of govern ment arc to provide for the common de sense and promote the general  Reagan accepts inc defense responsibility to inc Point of asking for $320.3 billion for military outlays in fiscal year 1987 almost a third of the budget and an increase of $34 billion. He has consistently rejected the common welfare responsibility however trying to reduce the Federal government s role in financing Public education and helping the poor inc elderly the disadvantaged. In 1987, he proposes to Cut Federal Aid to schools from 518 billion to $15.4 Bil lion and to strip away All financial assist Ance for a million College students. He wants to slash Low income programs by another sb.5 billion including the out right elimination of 14 of these programs. The Point to Noil is that every year since he assumed the presidency Reagan has asked for More Money for defense while trying to reduce appropriations for education and the needy even to the poem of abolishing the department of education. Congress holding a different View of the purposes of government has granted the additional Money for the Mil Nan while refusing to abolish the depart ment of education or Cut school and so Cial welfare appropriations to anywhere near the degree demanded by Reagan. The president s proposed 1987 budget and the initial reception it received on Capitol Hill make it Clear that for the rest of Reagan s final term the great National debate will be Over the purposes and priorities of the Federal government. It is Clear after five years that Reagan cannot sell Congress or the nation the James resign idea that Washington has Only the limited responsibility of ensuring that America remains Safe from communism. The polls indicate that Reagan is a popu Lar president. But How Many americans will understand or accept his proposing a 21 per cent increase in military housing in fiscal 1987 while mandating a 100 percent de crease in housing for the poor is the White House supposed to worry about where soldiers and sailors sleep yet not give a Damn How Many americans arc lying on sidewalk grates or crawling desperately into shelters for the indigent in bitterly cold weather make it the plight of Farmers thou Sands of whom will lose their farms be cause of Federal foreclosures the sick who will find Federal medical Aid reduced the jobless who won t get Job training under Federal auspices or the troubled poor who would not have a lawyer if there were no Legal services corp. Reagan would do Gross damage to All these groups not out of a certain knowl Edge that a healthy Economy require but because of his personal ideology it the role of the Central government this philosophical fight is coh laral and exasperating at the same time.-, pain is muted by a certain knowledge while a lot of americans give lip serv Lef to less  the vast majority prefers the views of Jefferson and Obj a framers of the Constitution to re ideas As to what government is tue to be do and pay Kir. Newt America syndicated we care Moynihan asks about broken fam fies among the Many imposing sights in washing Ion these Days you would have to include the tall figure of sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of new York striding along with an battered Irish hat on his head and a Chip on his shoulder. Over 20 Yean ago this former professor of government at Harvard assistant in the Cabinet w sub Cabinet to presi dents Kennedy Johnson Nixon and Ford ambassador to India and the United nations reported a crisis of illegitimate and neglected children in Black families. As he says he got a bloody nose in the process but Here he is again with an update of the facts in a remark Able Book called family and  this latest Book is different in two important respects from his original monograph. First he notes that the tragedy of broken families is not Only a Black problem but now a general problem not merely the responsibility of local state and Federal officials but a Challenge to the conscience of All americans. Do we care he asks. Do we really care he quotes from president Reagan s i98s state of the Union address a nation renewed stronger Freer and More secure. Knowing that As the family goes so goes our  Moynihan does t come up with any thumping conclusions except one if people Don t begin to pay More attention to the facts of family life in America there will be no effective remedies. So he asks do we care that in a period of our greatest Prosperity the number of our citizens living below the government s official poverty line is higher than Ever do we care that one out of four preschool children arc living below this poverty Index that As things Are now going within 10 years the majority of 17-year-Olds will come from broken families and that More than half of All births to teen age mothers arc out of Wedlock do we care that in 1984, 61 percent of poor adults were women that More than three quarters of All the poor were either adult women or children under 18, and that the poverty rate for. Children in female headed households was 54 percent do we care that our illegitimate birth rate like the crime rate is higher than in any other Western nation Well it s True that Moynihan thinks with his heart and writes with his fist but he is a trained scholar careful of his facts who for two decades has been trying " to get at the leading principle or Parent truth of our National life. No doubt he stuns his hearers with his fighting Irish passion and this is no Accident for what he is Irvine to do is get our attention to something maybe More Moor Lant than president Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines and More immediate than the exploration of space. He knows something of human frailty and has Learned from his experience in the Corriders of the University and the bureaucracy of Washington. Unlike the mental wanderings of most ghost written speeches in Congress he can not Only write and speak but say serious things with a glint of Irish humor. It s interesting that As he grows older Moynihan is Imore concerned about the plight of America s children i than the plight of its elderly. " a commonplace of political rhetoric he says in a new Book is that the Quality of a civilization May 4 measured by How it takes care of its elderly. Just surely the future of a society May be forecast by How it cares for its  b but time and again he insists that the Hope of Vej this problem lies not with our leaders but with v selves. He Points out that this crisis in our family ,1 did not come about through some great Cataw event such As War or epidemic or oppression abroad. The american people did it mainly on own and will have to begin by facing the facts syne Moynihan is not the first Harvard professor lot is against Public indifference. Archibald Macleish the poet identified problem even before Moynihan. We Are deluged facts he wrote in 1958, but we have lost or losing our human ability to feel them. Nothing could More convincingly demonstrate knowledge without feeling is not knowledge and Lead Only to Public irresponsibility and indifference and conceivably to ruin. Nothing " he concluded could More clearly pro that when the fact is disassociated from the feel of 1. Tact in the mods of an entire people in the coming mind of a civilization that people hat civilization ii new York Telmet Newt service