European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - December 18, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 columns. The stars and stripes William f. Buckley pay cuts Aren f Way to show conf Mph for officials it on the matter of the proposed raises for con Gressmen i al., a few observation sit is hard to contend that if their salary was fair in 1969, he same salary is fair today. Inflation  the old salary by 35 percent. So the argument from equity is on the Side of the raise even if you acknowledge the anomalies Here and there the presi Dent is scheduled to be increased from $200,000 loj 350,000, a raise of 75 percent which exceeds the rate of inflation. 2, granted that the whole question of inflation raises the question who was responsible for it inflation is caused Only by an increase in the Supply of dollars one species and for this the Federal reserves responsible or by the creation of a demand that is in excess of Supply and this can be caused by a Congress that authorizes appropriations incommensurate with production. There arc those who oppose they lend to do so tacitly but Here and there Are explicit about it pay raises to the very same people no create the reasons Why pay raises Are needed. 3. The idea of compensating for he pay raise for congressmen by forbidding them to earn fees Honor aria is a thought not Only mischievous in its implications hut thoroughly deceptive. A Crook is 2 Crook is a Crook. Unhappily the democratic system pays no attention to massive crockery. Massive Crook cry is defined Here just for example As making a big speech 10 the effect that no old people receiving social Security should be subjected to taxation on their benefits. That is what one might Call microcosmic crockery. Microcosmic cookery is when you Tell the chairman of the armed services committee that if he really thinks he can close Down this obsolete military installation in Georgia he had better think again about getting the military appropriations through. That kind of crockery uses up billions upon billions of dollars. Petty crockery which is of the third kind the new Bill would seek to move in on. Rep. John Francis Boris paid $10,000 to give a speech Al a convention of insurance executives. Or if a half hour speech by him is More than even insurance executives can stand per haps they will pay him $10,000 not to give a speech merely to attend the convention. 11 is generally sup posed that when the relevant legislation comes up. Bore will vote the right Way. Well in cure Petty crockery docs nothing at All to help us with the kinds of crockery we should primarily be concerned with which is special interest voting. And special interest voting is intensified by the need of congressmen to seek re election. Former rep. Otis Pike warned years ago that the prohibition against legislators continuing to practice their professional skills whether As lawyers or doctors or writers or whatever intensified their need to stay in office . Rosenthal g Fotu i syndic House the need to stay in office becomes the difference be tween employment and non employment if other Mcchan disable skills die of attrition. If we arc really thinking of Reform the Way logo is earn whatever you can doing whatever you can that is lawful while in Congress. And Bear in mind that constitutional amendment has just been passed limit ing you to four terms. 4. It is a Pill that so much Public attention rests on the legislative Branch. There arc judges out there As Well As executive officials. The latter Tor the most part can hang in for a year or to average time of tenure by Cabinet level and sub Cabinet level officials during the recent past 18 months. Here we speak of men and women who Are willing to give Public service a fling of sons. They Are prepared take for instance Rober Mosbacher Commerce Secretary designate who on lop of giving up his income is deprived even of the use of his private Jet to make sacrifices. Well theirs is a adventure of sorts and often is highly motivated it lends to be different for the judiciary. They arc not in there As a Rule for the Short haul. The readjust ments from private practice Are organic. And for the judges there is never any business of a Nice stipend for a Public appearance practically everything a Federal judge docs is unlawful with the exception of voting to repeal the Constitution. These ladies and gentlemen arc. Leaving the judiciary Many of them because the have to opt Between continuing As judges or sending their children through College and Law school. Whatever Congress ends up doing a Divi Sion should be made Between raises for legislators and for the judiciary but it is Best to let them receive their salary increases. Contempt for government official should be expressed in rhetoric not in pay reductions. Quest continues for Freedom in the a it was a Little embarrassing 10 watch from Moscow while Mikhail Gorbachev was greeted in new York with such boisterous enthusiasm. Something like being at party sober and seeing other guests who hardly know each other hug slap backs and make too much noise about How they ought to get together real soon. The reason probably was that i had been spending almost All my time in the soviet Union talking to and thinking about a group of soviet citizens who were Stone sober themselves. They were men freed after years in prison for speaking their minds against the soviet system of government or were Stilt in cells for the crime of trying to get out of their own  released men Are glad that Mikhail Gorbachev decided to let them go glad not grateful. For them gelling out of prison dots not mean thai the struggle for Liberty in the soviet Union is Over but is beginning a new and perhaps More intensive phase. It took Gorbachev More than three years in Power to concede to the world that the soviet Union held. Political prisoners. For the men he released thai was three More years of hard imprisonment for crimes of the mind he apparently no longer considers crimes. That thought did not bring the thrills of appreciation thai new yorkers seemed to be enjoying. They do have a sense of Freedom to speak that was Only a dream a few years ago. And they consider Gorbachev the Best Leader the soviet system has produced or is Likely to. But they feel that in is the system Gorbachev represents and works to save that imprisoned them and remains the problem. They Are still in combat against it. So this is not fiesta time for them. Too Many things remain to be done. ,. They want Gorbachev to acknowledge thai the system of which he is now the bulwark has arrested incarcerated and tortured thousands of men and women like them for no arc air crime than thinking and speaking. They want the people who persecuted them punished so those in the system who believe in the fist will beware they know there arc other soviet citizens still in prison for trying to escape the country and other basically political crimes. The newly freed fighters work to change the Laws that made them victims of their society. They ate not encouraged by what they have heard about the new criminal code which is being rewritten to secrecy. And they feel Here can be no new Day unless the whole system of secrecy that a shrouds arrest trials arid the police is torn apart there Are among them those who believe that As Long As their country remains essentially the one Pony dictatorship Gorbachev has in mind no Laws will Gua Rantee Freedom. They see Only one solution hot the Brilliant Gorbachev Patch up Job but the end to the entire communist political and economic system and the creation of a real democracy governing a nation that releases Cap Tive nationalities foreign and Domestic that do not want to be part of it. \ essentially the argument thai divides the people who have paid with years of heir Freedom for speaking their minds is whether to be Content with More reforms or push ahead for the Chance to Start All Over. But there is one conviction that unites them. It u that Western attention and pressure helped get them out of prison. They believe that the Gorbachev govern ment will respond Lei More of this Western ethical involvement and that this is precisely the wrong time forthe West to Call it  Irina a Kushinskaya is a poet who paid with four years of her Freedom for her poetry Ana her beliefs. In Moscow i underlined a passage in her Strong and Beautiful new Book of the gulag Gray is the color of Hope Knopf. She writes of the unending War in he prison Camps Between two sides the prisoners and the Kab. But she writes inert there is a third Side All the people in the soviet Union and abroad who remembered the prisoner fought for them and thus forced open so Many prison cells. There Are still cells where men and women Are locked in by Bari Laws or Power. Here Are  of this poet  me you of the third Side in at depends on you and you Are capable of achieving much More than you May