European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - November 14, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 columns the stars and stripes saturday november 14.1987 James Reston economic distress could lift democratic Hopes its reassuring these Days id walk along Penn Sylvania Avenue from the Treasury department past the White House. The buildings seem so sturdy and changeless. But of course change is now the order of the Day Here. Since the Stock Market Hiccup Secretary of de sense Caspar Weinberger and All the noisiest loyalists have departed. The balance of the Economy has changed the balance of the Cabinet has changed and the administration is groping haphazardly toward the end while Washington turns its attention to a changing presidential Campaign. Only a few Short weeks ago. The republicans were saying that everything was As sound As the Dollar and the democrats were in despair. There had been 59 months of spending and borrowing and economic growth unemployment was below 6 percent for the first Lime in 10 years general Secretary Mikhail s. Gorbachev was coming to town to sign the first nuclear arms reduction treaty since he invention of the atom bomb and vice president Bush was running ahead in the Campaign popularity polls. The Wall Street crash has t changed All that but it sent a shudder through the country and raised the Hopes of the democrats that they might win in i9bb, even Wilh a team of uninspiring second raters. Their main Hope lies in the bad economic news in the alarm ing budget and Trade deficits to which they have contributed in the economic weakness in he farm Energy textile Limber steel and mining sectors and in the historic record of past campaigns. They have lost four of the last five presidential elections and As Kevin Phillips of the american Polit ical report has pointed out they have never taken the while House away from the republicans in this Cen Tury except in years of economic distress 1912, 1932, William f. Buckley 1960 and 1976, it is possible however that Wall Street will recover from its nervous breakdown and that with the help of Germany and Japan the president and Congress Willcome to their senses and restore the recovery of 1983 87. Rut the chances Are that uncertainty will reduce consumer spending and prolong anxiety in the country through most of next year s Campaign. If so this May encourage he unhappy and reckless thought that the democrats can go on loitering along and win with any of their present candidates rather than drafting gov. Mario m. Cuomo of new York or Sens. Bill Bradley of new Jersey or Sam Nunn of Georgia. Meanwhile we May Sec in the coming year a More coherent and less ideologies and confrontational Rea Gan administration. Obviously As the Ginsburg fiasco suggests the administration is a Long Way from Harmony on some important Domestic matters. But with Frank Carlucci of defense instead of Weinberger Bill Webster at the Cia instead of Dill Casey Vernon Wai Ter sat the United nations instead of Jeanc Kirk Patrick and Gen Powell at the National Security Council in Stead or.\dm. George Shultz and the other moderate survivors will have less trouble in the Field of foreign policy. Weinberger with the help of Richard a crts his assistant for International affairs was the Mosi stub bom defender of Ever larger defense budgets including deployment of inc president s Star wars program and he was much More sceptical than Sulu and Paul Nitzsc in their efforts to reach a nuclear arms treaty with the soviets. In 1981 and 1982. Alarmed by a 20 percent Cut in defense spending in the decade of the 70 she persuaded Congress to increase the Pentagon s budget by 12 percent and by 1985 the military budget was Large than at the Peak of the Vietnam War. Dul As the budget deficit increased the military budget was Cut by 4.2percent in fiscal 1986, by another 2.5 percent in fiscal 87, and it faced further cuts year. Weinberger i s entitled to the Praise Reagan show Rcd on him during his Rose Garden resignation for strengthening the Power and morale of the armed forces but he never saw any relationship Between his defense expenditures and inc budget deficit and it never occurred to him that occasionally his critics might have a Point. In fairness he was More cautious about using arms than some of his opponents he merely wanted to collect them in the belief that having them would deter aggression. But he could see he was losing his Battles and with an ail ing wife decided to go Home. Without him the internal fight for the president s support will undoubtedly go on but it will be less strident. The Only remaining member of the original Reagan Cabinet is Samuel r. Pierce jr., the Secretary of housing and Urban development. It s Odd that All the hard Linen on foreign policy chose to leave before the end. Nothing has really been settled. As George Shutlz said during the Iran Contra hearings nothing is eve settled in Washington. That s especially True under Reagan who changes his mind on most things depend ing on who last advised him in the Oval office. Now however most of his advisers to the dismay of the Supply siders will be the backsliders who think they can Cut a Deal with the soviets and even Wilh Congress. Maybe he just wanted a Little peace in the while House for a change and after the last seven contentious years nobody could blame him. Gop candidates fall into false statist philosophy what the democratic presidential candidates had in common in their first debate in Houston was hostility for the contras and for the strategic defense initiative. This is historical since the democrats were the great anti isolationist political Force of the 20th Century at times wilsonian in their appetite to move in and make the rest of the world More like ourselves. And it was democratic leadership that gave us the key to nuclear physics and to a Man on the Moon. Now the democrats Are increasingly isolationist and Luddite. The Republican candidates in Houston had in com Mon or very nearly so an enthusiasm for what the stale can accomplish. Listening to them there one wailed in vain for the anti statist rhetoric associated Wilh Ronald Reagan and Wilh the intellectual forces that led to the Ascendancy of a paganism. There was one bracing moment. It came when Pete Dupont said that the emphasis being placed on peace was not entirely reconcilable with the biographical emphasis correctly placed on George Bush s record As a War did not have a Chance to elaborate but Dupont was saying that there had to be something More important than peace if George Bush was to be acclaimed As he should be for his role no in waging peace but in waging War in Pursuit of a certain Kinder peace. The kind of pea measured in modern limes for which the american people will Settle is a peace that leaves us free of soviet domination free from totalitarianism. The enthusiasm with which most Republican candidates regard the potential of government neglects the main axe of traditional conservative thought in America which is anti statist. It is astonishing thai we should think of ourselves As heavily indebted to the state. Why is peace so desperately sought after because it is in jeopardy. What is it that jeopardizes the peace if not statist control of scientific skills and military concentrations John Dillinger was a threat to the peace. But in a pretty limited Way. If he had lived a thousand years and continued to kill Al his going rate he would not have destroyed As Many human beings As lost their lives on the Day we landed on iwo Jima to resist statist japanese imperialism. We struggle All of us against poverty but poverty is induced by state action even Here whether in Ethiopia by errant marxism or Mexico by statist greed and incompetence. Human beings struggle whole lifetimes la save Money whose value is eliminated in a year or iwo by statist inflationary activity. Statist control of Public schooling causes the worst to survive often Al the expense of the better. Slate enforced regulations imposed Jim Crow and seek to impose ethnic discrimination via affirmative action. Stales seek 10 govern prices retroactively to confiscate landlords properly to regulate foreign Commerce to define usury to set minimum wage Laws. We owe it to the stale that we pay five times the world s Market Price for sugar to the slate that we tax j4fl billion to maintain agricultural redundancies. The Man next door May be � murderer or he May run Over our child while driving a car drunk or he May steal from us or swindle or he May infect us with a deadly disease or set fire to our Houk or rape or seduce our daughter. We Are All sinners As congressman Jack Kemp correctly pointed out. Pre Empting the Point from Pat Robertson. But the sins of the individual arc transmogrified when institutionalized in the state. And the agents of statist action have a Way of going through life with relative impunity whether former president Echever Ria mourning the impoverishment of the mexican peo ple from his multifarious palatial estates or Adolf hit Ler paying for inc deaths of the 10 million needed to Stop him with his own niggardly death. The republicans should not sound like anarchists nor think anarchy. But they should t lightly abandon the most refreshing insight of postwar republicanism which acknowledges the insight of the earliest demo cratic president la was Thomas Jefferson who said that the government is Best which governs least and who reminded us that the government can Only do some thing for the people in proportion As it can do some thing to the people
