European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - February 8, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 columns the stars and stripes William f. Buckley or. Brady s 25-cent idea has some saving Merit the hysteria Over Nicholas Bra by s tentative proposal that depositors pay 25 cents per $100 deposited in Banks in Exchange for the insurance they Are receiving tells us a lot we Are pained to remember about the Basic economic ignorance not so much of the publican of their spokesmen. It was t Joe a what sup who yelled with pain at the idea but such As Henry b. Gonzalez the Texas Democrat who is chairman of the House banking com Mittee. He said i Don t see any differ ence Between raising the Premium an exacting a tax a so then one has to begin by explaining to the chairman of the House banking committee what that difference is. George Bush when asked whether this was t in fact a new tax answered do you Call it a tax when somebody decides to go to Yosemite National Park and pays the entry fee the Point Here is that Yosemite National Park does t come free it costs a certain amount to run it. Federal Deposit insurance does t come free you be got to pay some thing to run it. In fact this is a Good time to remember that there is no such thing As a free lunch. The question before the Bush administration is very simple do we go further into debt by coping with the results of the catastrophic maladministration of the savings and Loans or Dowe pay As we go actually the Brady proposal voted to go Halfway on the question. A tax of 25 cents on $100 would have raised not enough Money to pay out the insurance on bad Loans. It was designed to raise Only the interest necessary to finance insurance payments. Ninety Bil lion dollars is the working figure on How much the feds Are going to need to pay out to depositors. Twenty five cents will raise one tenth of that or $9 billion just enough to pay interest. If the Brady plan were adopted we would still be adding to the National debt something on the order of $100 billion but we would not be adding to the annual interest pay ments. One complaint by the Bankers and their representatives is that it is unfair to tax them for the delinquencies of their Stepbrother the a is. That Point is Anthony Lewis narrowly Correct but socially irrelevant. A Driver who has never scraped a fender is going to suffer for the recklessness of those other Drivers whose i formalities on the Road Jack up insurance rates. There Are Many sick people who have never done anything to contribute to the spread of aids who will nevertheless be paying higher Hospital fees because the hospitals quite properly assume a part of the Burden of caring for those who suffer from aids. The Brady proposal would have imposed a fee on depositors for Federal de posit insurance. Although the phrase user tax is widely employed the distinction Between it and a general tax ought not floor the chairman of a Bank ing committee. If in order to maintain the George Washington Bridge authorities calculated that it would require an additional $1.25 per vehicle traversing the Bridge one should be hesitant to denounce the increase As a violation of the no new tax pledge articulated by or. Bush s lips in new Orleans. When As is inevitable the Post office announces a fresh increase in the Cost of delivering a letter that increase is not properly la bleed a tax. Outrage should be confined to the extravagant and inefficient operation of the Post offices or the Bridge maintenance team and there is plenty to be outraged about in the matter of the a is. Though in expressing this outrage it is Correct to Bear in mind the distinctions. The people who invested in the bad a is Aren t getting a dime they have gone bankrupt. It is the depositors who Are being paid protecting them from the maladministration of the peo ple who went broke and who in turn were grossly neglected by the Federal regulators who Are supposed to see to it that the country does t stumble into $90 Bil lion accidents. There is always the question of the incidence of a fresh fee. It s easy when you talk about visiting Yosemite. The person who drives in pays the fee. Well the depositor Community broadly viewed to include Banks and a is is getting $100,000 of Protection from fed eral insurance. To insure 100 grand by paying $250 would not appear to be confiscatory. Interest paid out by Banks to depositors has fluctuated by a great Deal More than one Quarter of 1 percent Over the years and one does t hear a cry against the Federal Reserve Board when it increases the prime rate of interest by one Quarter of 1 percent. Hang in there Brady. Universal press Syndicate South Africa needs Leader willing to negotiate i of Vlf a i7l-� a it Cut a1vt t d Dijt i. I a world rooted positions Are yielding to the logic of Histo agreement to get cuban and synth . ?lsl102abl.e St ability. South Africa is straining. 0ry. Might that begin to happen soon in the country that has for so Long stood out against change South Africa the question is raised by the shift at the top in White South african politics. President . Botha Leader of the National party and the government for the last 11 years gave up the party position after a stroke and was succeeded by . De Klerk. Many think the same transition will come in the presidency before Long. De Klerk is a generation younger than Botha 52 against 73. He is a More cosmopolitan figure less Insu Lar and prickly in his afrikaner identity than National party leaders of the last 40 years. But he has never articulated a vision of the country without apartheid and in the party caucus he narrowly Defeated a More reformist colleague. The possibility of change lies less in de Klerk than in the situation. Externally there has already been a striking shift in South african policy. It was a response to new realities. Botha was close to the military and for 10 years he based his regional policy on military Force. He raided All of the neighbouring Black ruled countries destabilized Mozambique invaded Angola. He held out against International pressure to let occupied Namibia become Independent. But last year the Cost of operations in Angola mounted. Cuban troops moved into the Southwest enforce menacing Namibia. Uses of of �v/aau11 we of i a agreement to get cuban and South african forces out of Angola and free Namibia. Botha turned from thumping to courting Black Afri Ca. In 10 years he had never visited a Black govern ment. Last fall he travelled to four african countries. The agreement had important political implications inside South Africa. It stopped the steady Rise of military influence in the government. Some had thought the defense minister Magnus Malan would succeed Botha. In the party caucus Las week he was not a candidate. Over the years Botha had claimed that South Africa faced a total onslaught from International communism. That was a justification for brutal internal re pression. But now the cubans Are going. And soviet officials have been helpful in the negotiations. It hardly follows that the government is about to abandon the apartheid system. The stake in that is Power. And there is no internal pressure equivalent to the cuban Force in Southern Angola. The Black majority is under control at least for the moment the township patrolled by soldiers Many leaders in prison. But there Are new realities All the same. One is economic. Apartheid cripples South Africa s great potential in the International Economy. Various Levels of sanctions make Trade More difficult. More important foreign investors Are not South Africa afric g to there is an economic reality of another kind the growing and irreplaceable role of Blacks As skilled workers and customers. Middle class Blacks who buy in the department stores of Johannesburg Burn with non Middle class anger when they Are forced to live in a Soweto slum. To a certain extent the system has yielded to such realities. The government abandoned its plans to toughen enforcement of residential segregation be cause it would be so costly to undo de Facto mixing of certain neighbourhoods. There Are Many gestures the government could make to majority opinion. It could Grant clemency to More of the Black prisoners under death sentences. It could release detainees lift the restrictions that keep others from living Normal lives end the repressive state of emergency. But the real Issue is the right of All South africans to Nave a voice in their country the right to vote. The government knows it is embarrassed by it and does not know How to tace it without alarming its White constituency. The Only Way Forward at Home is the same Way the government has just gone abroad negotiate. Every one knows who must sit at the table Nelson Mandela Ana the others imprisoned and exiled. All it takes to begin talking is leadership. New York times i
