European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - January 12, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes monday january 12,1987 columns George will. Lame Duck Reagan still conducts the orchestra in submitting a budget that purports la hit the Gramm Rudman deficit redi Liolion requirement presi Dent Reagan hns done his duly As Don Liddic did his minimally. Liddic was the new York giants Relief Pitcher summoned from the Polo grounds bullpen in the 1954 world series o Pilch o Vic Wirtz of he Clevelan indians with the score tied in the eighth inning and two runners on one out. Wunz crushed a Liddic pitch rocketing it 460 feet to dead Center. Only in the Polo grounds would such a blast not be a Home run and Only the giants Young  Willie Mays could have run it Down to make perhaps the greatest catch in world series history. Liddic who was promptly replaced by another re lip Var strode into the dugout and said contentedly Well i got my  Reagan s budget will do the Job stipulated by Tramm Rudman reducing the deficit to Hob billion if several variables Congress the Economy behave extraordinarily. The Economy must grow faster than in 1986, faster than most economists predict. Congress must agree to Domestic spending cuts it has emphatically rejected be fore. Congress also must agree to some other actions it has hitherto considered unthinkable. The budget Calls for Sale of some Federal assets Loans some of am Irak some Federal electric Power operations regarding those operations Congress last Ymir forbade the administration even to study Selling. There is a kind of wobbly consensus emerging concerning four Points. Pint Congress did not really hit the last Gramm Rudman target last autumn it fell about 120 billion Short. Second the variables con Gress the Economy will not Van in ways that permit hitting the Gramm Rudman $1 of billion target. Third that is Good because such a Sharp slash might Send the Economy into a slump. And fourth the deficit is a declining menace. This fourth Point is a mixed Blessing for Reagan and for the nation. He predicted the deficit decline but the decline May undo his bold attempt to control the 1990s, and May undo such discipline As now exists in Congress. To say As is incessantly done thai Reagan s budget it is now your  Andrt a and he does it want it Akk. St5w Here Tom Wicker is dead on arrival at Congress is to miss the Point about what presidential budgets have become. They Are manifestos that do not bind action rather they Settle Agenda of argument. To say that the Nide reception of Reagan s budget shows How lame a Duck he has become misses the significance of what Reagan hath wrought As shown in the budget. Me May be somewhat lame but thai May not matter much. There is no reason to think that he wants or wanted to be a political athlete in his last two Yean. Lameness is not an immobilizing affliction for someone who is Content to be even determined to be immobile. As 1987 begins the past is not prologue to some bold new chapter. In Domestic policy most of what hat happened since september of 1981 has been a Coda. The heart of the Reagan concert had been played by then with the spending and lax cuts. Since autumn 1981, Here has been on the spending Side an ongoing referendum. Congress reflecting Ai it is very Good at doing the popular will has said enough already.1" the Public has wanted to mop Domestic spending cuts and to slow defense increases and both have been done. On the Revenue Side there has emerged especially since the Mondale Campaign a bipartisan commitment to Revenue neutrality in tax changes. And for the moment the dangerous growth of the deficit has been replaced by the dangerous slowing of that growth. Here is a Paradox. Because of Iran As Well As the natural attrition of governance Reagan is a somewhat lame Duck. He has a weakened hold on the country s attention and congressional deference. ,. However in 1989 he will again loom like a colossus Over Washington no mean trick for someone living in los Angeles. His reach will extend through the dec Ade beyond his departure from office. He will control the future debate and Agenda More than any modern president has done. The reason for this is Wal lame in his budget the government which is energized by Money is out of Energy thanks to Reagan s shrinkage of he government s Revenue base. Every Day the government is another Day Okler and deeper in debt. But because of the discipline Engen dered by eat of 1200 billion deficits the National debt is no longer growing faster than the Gross National product. However How Long will the discipline survive this onslaught of Good news it is an axiom of conservative realism in a democracy fear does the to k of reason. So we have nothing to fear but the absence of fear itself. Uhf Nguoi it Wal i croup sympathy should not determine foreign policy when adm. John Poindexter was asked Why he had condoned an apparently illegal diversion of funds from the iranian arms Sale to the contras trying to overthrow the sandinista regime in Nicaragua president Reagan s former National Security adviser is reported to have replied l fell sorry for the con  that s hardly sufficient reason for making important foreign policy Deci Sions Tel alone breaking the Law and in this Case it s not the real reason any Way. The actual motives behind the Rea Gan administration s dogged die hard occasionally illegal determination to sup port the contras despite that policy s failure have been disclosed again in its own Public statements. Elliott Abraxas the assistant Secre tary of stale for inter american affairs to a group of european correspondents if you believe in negotiations if you want the Contador process to proceed and succeed we believe that the Only Way to a it is through the military pres sure that the contras can put on the sandinista regime. If this current . Policy is maintained it seems to me the sandinista will not  William g. Walker Abrams s Dep Uty in a letter to the new York times Jan. 9the threat to Costa Rica s unarmed democracy lies across its Northern Border in Nicaragua from which entangle the very real military pressures that the democracies of Central America new and old Are  these statements Ike others before them some by president Reagan him self leave no doubt that the administration s objective in organizing arming and training the contras has been and still is the overthrow of the sandinista government. Not Only do Reagan and his men want the democratization of Nicaragua that Abrams demanded they either believe or put Forward As a Plau sible rationale that Nicaragua also constitutes a Clear and present danger to its peaceful neighbors. There Are numerous flaws in this administration position aside from the fact that the sandinista obviously see Hon Duras with its big . Military pres ence and backing its shelter for the con iras and its Superior air Force now being bolstered by the . As anything but a peaceful neighbor. Is grotesque therefore for example for the . Now to insist piously on the democratization of Nicaragua after this country s Long history of sup port for and sometimes As in Guatemala in the 50s, creation of brutal and dictatorial latin governments not least the . Puppet regime of the Somonos under which Nicaragua suffered for so Long and the continuing Pinochet dictatorship in Chile even ignoring this shabby history where is in written in Law or the Constitution that the . Is sup posed to Force democracy on other coun tries and Only on some countries Al that As for Nicaragua s threat to its neigh bore even stipulating that it exists which the Reagan administration has not been Able conclusively to show the . Has never needed to counter it by organizing supplying and training an army tainted with Somo Islas. The Cia and human rights abuses to overthrow a government even Washington recognizes. Instead with overwhelming support in the hemisphere and among its. Allies which the Reagan policy of military overthrow does not have Washington could state plainly that it will not tolerate any soviet military base in Nicaragua or any overt or Covert attempt by Nicara Gua to attack in neighbors. Thai policy could be verified and enforced at far less Cost than the Good Money Reagan and Abrams want to throw after the bad Al ready spent on the contras. Abrams insists that the Sandinia tas will negotiate a Central american peace Structure Only if the . Keeps them under the military pressures of the contras but it s far More Likely that the Reagan administration s obvious determination to overthrow them is what keeps the sandinista fighting especially since what Washington wants n a negotiation that would result in democratization and the inclusion of Contra Leaden in a new government in effect the removal of the sandinista regime. For nearly 10 years the . Tried unsuccessfully to use military pressure Leforce North Vietnam into negotiating away its own position. That War should have taught this administration that Small nations do not always succumb to the Power of Large ones and that it can not win Al the negotiating table what its surrogate army has been unable to wrest from a determined adversary on he Battlefield the contras have shown no ability at any time to win popular support or to Lake and bold territory in Nicaragua. Nothing suggest that More . Dollars and More Cia training or even poin Denler s Crocodile tears can improve that dismal record this administration s record. New York time news. Servo