European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - August 20, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse Pago 10 the stars and stripes wednesday August 20,1986 columns David Broder Congress will face Tough decisions on its return Congress town Las week 10 the usual mixture of cheers and catcalls. The members and their families really should try to enjoy their August vacations because september is going awful or them when they conic Back with the elections just 60 Days away they have o face decisions on the Basic Federal fiscal plan for nest year spending decisions that can make few voters Happy but can no longer he postponed. Their Only Consolation is that they will gel to Pul Isdr final stamp of approval on the tax revision Hill hat ill be remembered As the major accomplishment of this 9�th Congress. If you nth yourself Why Congress a done so Well bringing off a massive and overwhelmingly constructive overhaul of the tax syst Etc hut has hogged Down so badly on the routine budget and Bills one answer leaps out. In the first Case they had Percsi Den Reagan s cooperation but in the second the have been fighting him every step of the Way. No other explanation holds water. Chairmen Dan Rostonkowski Del of the House ways and Means committee and Bob Packwood. A pc. Of the Senate finance Commilee Are Astric Poi lilians. They de serve the Praise they Are getting for bringing off the biggest redesign of the tax system since world War ii. Along with such Early Flat tax advocates As sen. Bill Bradley. A no. And rip. Jack Kemp r-n.y., who intervened at crucial moments to keep the Effort from failing hey negotiated the measure past All the traps that Industry economic regional and ideological pres sure groups designed to Block it. But no one. 1 think would claim thai Packwood and Ras Lenkowski arc better legislative craftsmen or More diligent workers than he chairmen of the two budget committees. Sen. Pete v. Domenici r-n.m.,and rep. William h. Gray i. A a. Domenici and Gray forged agreements inside their committees on spending plans for he coming year every bit As sound and workable As the tax plans Pak Wood and Rostenkowski devised. Left to themselves they could agree readily on the fiscal blueprint for next year. The difference the crucial difference is that Reagan tvs aboard the lax plan while he has been blockading the budget spending blueprint. A president cannot legislate. But he can either pre pare the ground for the hundreds of Small accommodations that arc at the heart of the legislative process or he ran mine the held with so Many Booby inns of his own thai legislation becomes almost impossible. Reagan set the stage for the Triumph on taxation Riib a own original proposal. 16 months ago. It was a bold and sweeping design keyed to the Clear economically sound and socially desirable principle thai Rales Anthony Lewis a Edh fives could be lowered dramatically for everyone if privileged persons corporations and categories of economic activity were made to pay their fair share of then Burden. Behind Alt inc technicalities Reagan was laying Down a powerful principle that propelled the tax legis lation past All he predictable roadblocks. In the budget he submitted to Congress last february As in its four predecessor Reagan did exactly the opposite. His budget was nol Only false in its eco nomic assumptions and spending calculations it was flawed in its fundamental concept. Instead of saying no to special privileges. Reagan actively sought privileged status for Nis cherished Mili tary buildup and the politically popular social Security benefits. Because of their size protecting these two categories of spending dictated politically impossible and socially objectionable reductions in unprotected Domestic programs which Congress had to reject. Another great difference where Reagan properly Laid Down the principle that the tax Bill should be Revenue Neutral neither raising not lowering he Over All Federal receipts his budget once again proposed not fiscal neutrality but massive deficit spending. Not once since he became president has Reagan come close to suggesting that the people of this country should pay for the government services defense and Domestic he has recommended. No once. Sometime in september there will be a tax Bill sign ing ceremony at the White House where Reagan Rostenkowski Packwood Kemp Bradley and others will Praise each other for what they have done. And All through the month the White House wit be criticizing Congress As it struggles fitfully and probably futilely to untangle inc budget mess. Please remember that Ronald Reagan is just As deeply and vitally involved in he budget tale Maie As he is in the tax Bill Triumph. He made the lax Victory possible. And he also made a budget fiasco inevitable. Porgy and Bess still brings tears to the eyes at the end of the first full rehearsal of porgy and Bess for the festival in Glynore Bourne England the entire cat was crying. The singers were that caught up in the tragic Story and George Gersh win s expression of it in music. But More than that they must have known they were part of a rare experience a production that redeems an artistic vision res cuing it from doubts Bri Nging it to life porgy and Bess has had its doubters from the beginning in 193s. There were wonderful songs yes. Bui did they amount to More than a collection of lunch by the most gifted of Broadway song writers was it an opera then there were doubts about its a Ciai character. The picture of life in Cal fish Row of Blacks who use language like dal and dem arid say yes. Bass to White South Carolina policemen was said to be condescending. And could a jew from new York really Cap Ture inequalities of Black music a Crismin undertook the challenges deliberately he read Dubose Heyward s novel porgy in 1926 and decided then thai he wanted to write an opera based on it. When the Way was finally Clear in 1933. He spent months on the South car Olina coast absorbing the rhythms of speech and song. The result undeniably included much Beauty and emotion. I always cry at the end when Bess has been tempted to new York and crippled porgy goes after her in his Goat cart of lord i m on my Way. I m on my Way to a heavenly land but in the Many productions Over the years there was always something lacking a wholeness a Unity of ideas and music that characterizes opera at its Best. All those doubts dissolved within min utes after the curtain Rose at Clyde Bourne. Shapes look form in darkness danced watched lived. This truly was Catfish Row. When Clara Sang summertime it was nol just a tune ii emerged from the scene. There was no racial condescension Here. One saw that Gershwin and his collaborators his brother Ira and do Bose Heyward identified with their characters. These were not stereotypes Quaini soul hem Blacks but individual struggling with destiny in oppressive circumstances. The magic of theater and music when it happens is impossible fully to explain but somehow the cast he director tre Vor Nunn and the conductor Simon rattle Drew from the exotic time anyplace and culture of porgy and Bess the Universal and the tension of great Art. Willard while who played porgy gave the part an extraordinary a Cru Cial dignity. Before our eyes a pathetic beggar grew into a tragic hero. There Wasno Goat cart. Porgy one leg horribly twisted walked with two homemade canes. At inc end As he set Oul on the impossible to Mimcy to new York he threw first one then the other away the ears shed in this audience were nol just sentimental ones for porgy. Or so 1 thought trying to understand what made it so moving an occasion. There was the sense of Gershwin Stream coming True. He had written an opera and what More might he have done if he had nol died just two years later at the age of 38? and another vision was justified that of Gly Debourne itself. In 1934 John Christie started what might have been a Folly an opera festival in the English Countryside with audiences in dinner dress. German refugees helped to bring it artistic distinction it the beginning and Over the years it has attracted great conductors directors and performers. Now with this production Gay rate Bourne Hud reached Carou cultures to produce what one English critic called one of the Mast iting events of an opera going or perhaps rather it had shown that cultural and racial differences need not matter so much. Something like that Hope was part of the emotion of the May a that Only Gly Debourne could devote the time and attention thai would create a porgy and Bess of such integrity. Its Power was internal not Fla shy. In the Small opera House at Glynde Bourne seating 831, it was almost unbearably concentrated. Economic realities Rule Oul doing this production in a larger theater or opera House. I Hope a Way in be found 10capture its Quality on television the first porgy was Todd Dun can. He described How he first heard the score George and Ira Gershwin sing ing it 10 him in their awful Rotten bad he resisted then was overcome. When they finally finished with i m on my Way i was crying. I was car Rel him a
