European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - February 13, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes William f. Buckley True congressional Reform in t on Agenda the fiasco culminating in the hypo critical vote of the House of representatives helps to remind some of us Why after All we re glad we re not in Congress. Here were 380 men and women hungry for a pay raise who nevertheless proceeded to vote against that raise. The incident reminds one of an Epi Sode Many years ago Back when sen. Phil Gramm Texas Republican was rep. Phil Gramm Texas Democrat. It was during the recession of 1974 and he put it this Way to the House of representatives. Look he said the average working Man on account of hard times is making Zero net increase in his wages this year. Meanwhile every six months we Are indexing social Security. Why not let the older people participate just a Little bit in the hard times by indexing them this next time around not every six months but every 12 months among other things that will save the Treasury about $2 billion. The voice vote was one of overwhelming approval. Then or. Teacher s pet said he wanted that put to a record vote. Where upon the measure was overwhelmingly Defeated. The majority of the congressmen did t want to associate themselves Indi i against double Index want that raise for their congressmen. Wright who is the biggest spender since every do in every municipality in Amer his predecessor tip o Neill won his last Ica when the question was raised was election in Texas unopposed. Indeed the and this time the congressmen did t want to associate themselves with authorizing a 50 percent Rise in salaries never mind that the House speaker had promised that the very next Day he would propose to re Duce that 51 percent to 30 percent. Swamped by negative phone Calls. Now the reason this in t the Healthiest expression of the working of popular democracy is that the voters were not saying quite the kind of thing one wishes to conclude they were saying. As simple As Why should we raise your salary when you Are the people who have been voting the Republic into a historic deficit year after year if the message had been that direct one might have cheered. But of course it was not. The same voters who put their foot democrats who Are in the Public mind for Good reason the party of the big spenders increased their hold in the House As they did in the Senate. Point had been to punish the big to do so there is no questioning the crystallize Down voted Only a few months ago with Tion of a hard political consensus during overwhelming enthusiasm in Many the past fortnight. The american people cases for the very worst actors in the All but unanimously said they did not congressional lot. Congressman Jim new i int close sent them Back to Washington to pass a $1.16 trillion budget it does t prove very much to Tell them they can t have a 51 percent raise having been without for so Long and victimized at the same time by inflation. The Way to punish a bad doctor in t to give him Rusty tools. There Are of course the incidental victims primary among them members of the judiciary. For them there Are none of the Perks one always hears about in connection with congressmen. They do not Send a million letters without postage do not Jun Ket around the world do not get free Mas sages or whatever in the exercise room of the House of representatives. Many of them granted assume the role not so much of judges As of master legislators and have a lot of fun playing with the Constitution. But Short of impeachment there is no Way to Deal with the likes of a Thurgood mar shall or a William Brennan. To Tell them in effect that they cannot get a raise even sufficient to Cope with inflation is Pett Fogg Ery of an ignoble sort. Still it was not the judges the political whip was after but the congressmen. And the question now arises whether the Public mood would change if they drafted new regulations prohibiting Congress men from being paid for Public lectures. Once again we confront a proposal that misses the Point. The corrupt Congress Man is going to vote corruptly not so much because he is paid to give a lecture As because the people who do that kind of thing Are going to contribute massively to his re election Kitty. True Reform would focus on the handle special interest groups have on our House of lords. But True Reform which would limit a congressman to say three terms in Washington in t on anybody s Agenda. Universal press Syndicate Tom Wicker dec eng population invigorating sign of times gazing far into the future tends to diminish the events of the present. When the census Bureau predicted recently that in a half Century the . Population would Peak at about 302 million and shrink thereafter such matters As John Tower s troubled nomination or Dwight Gooden s new contract or mayor Koch s election prospects began to seem ephemeral. That s not because a declining population necessarily Means a declining nation or threatens some form of cataclysm. Rather the idea of the future arouses a certain sense of Awe As if peering too far into it were intruding on forbidden ground. Who in any Case can imagine the world of 50 years from now or 100? who knows if the world will even exist then or be inhabitable where will we All be Kurt Weill s plaintive song inquires on Coronation Day demography of course depends on human behaviour so Little in it can be certain. The census Bureau insisted that its prediction was Only what its experts considered the most realistic of numerous possible population paths. The forecast might even be too optimistic such variables As War pestilence immigration restraints Star vation contraceptive techniques and guns can and Proba Bly will confound even the ubiquitous computer. Or the curve might go the other Way. After Many centuries of Low population growth worldwide after All a declining death rate attributable mostly to medical advances was a major Factor in the population explosion that began about 1950. It took More than a Century before that year for the number of people in the world to double from 1.25 billion to about 2.5 billion people but in the Mere 38 years since and despite considerable emphasis on birth control world population has doubled again to approximately 5 billion people. The census Bureau s most realistic estimate for the United states contrasts sharply with other Popula Tion experts predictions for the world. Globally 3 billion More people will be added by 2025, if a United nations projection proves accurate and the world s population will have doubled again to just Over 10 billion by the end of the 21st Century. Most of that population growth would take place out Side North America and Europe but that s nothing new. The so called developed countries including Japan had about a third of the world s people until 1950, but by 1985 that proportion had fallen to less than a Quarter suggesting that relative population decline won t necessarily signal a similar decline in  instead the countries need growth adequate to feed and care for their increasing numbers of people. For that reason a . Population about to Peak and turn Down could be a double Blessing More american re sources would be available for distribution to a needy world and the nation would be in a More compelling position from which to argue for stiffer measures of population control elsewhere. The census Bureau also projected a drastic drop in the number of americans under 35, from 55 percent of the total now to 41 by the year 2030. That s the so called crime prone age group so a decline in crime rates May be some compensation for the Many problems to be caused by a rising proportion up to 22 percent of people Over 65. Still the Prospect of a falling population is daunting. Our forebears had to get used to the idea that the Frontier had vanished leaving no further escape to the mythic West in recent times americans have had to face none too happily the end of the nation s economic pre Eminence. These May be minor trials compared with that awaiting the first americans who will have to live in the knowledge that their numbers Are growing smaller that the Ever expansive notion of an Ever expanding America has faded with the Frontier and the smokestack into history. Our children in Many cases our grandchildren will be elderly in the unimaginable year 2038. Few of them May remember that from the Early 1930s to now the nation s population doubled to the present 246 million. They will have lived instead through a half Century during which growth is expected to have dropped by 25 percent reaching its apogee at 302 Mil lion. That and the decline projected to follow not just m growth rates but in actual numbers surely would have a profound effect on the optimistic Boomer s psychology that has been so nearly the driving Force of americans Brief remarkable history. New York times