European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - October 08, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 columns George will the stars and stripes future generations will pay for our excesses if the democratic party disappeared would that make a difference what is the party for these dyspeptic questions Are occasioned by the party s participation in the bipartisan abuse of its emblematic achievement. Social Security. Begin As everything docs these Days with the bipartisan business of breaking the Law. The Gramm Rudman deficit reduction Law was enacted in 1985. Not one of its targets has Ever been hit in spite of creative accounting budgetary frauds of a sort that might get someone in the private sector sent to prison. Gramm Rudman which originally permitted a deficit of Only $36 billion by fiscal 1990 now i week old was re Vised in the name of realism to permit a $100 billion deficit plus a $10 billion fudge Factor. The administration claims the deficit will be $99.7 billion the con Gressional budget office claims $117.8 billion so we have an $18.1 billion Dis agreement right wrong. We have a mock argument Between people who know that the important number is around $300 billion with a few honorable exceptions the political class is United in ignoring As Gramm Rudman permits them to do the part played by All the Trust fund sur pluses the largest of which is the social Security surplus generated by a regressive payroll tax. This nation had a mighty argument concerning enactment of the 16th amendment the income tax which implemented an ethical judgment. Now the nation is almost absentmindedly reducing the importance of the income tax relative to the payroll tax. A democratic controlled Congress is untroubled by the flood of revenues from that tax revenues surging through the Federal budget and out into operating expenses for the government. These expenses include debt service of about 180 billion in interest payments largely to wealthy individuals and institutions. Republicans have seized the Low ground aggressively embracing the beggar the a Cal go cration policy of borrow Bor David Broder Row spend spend elect elect. But give republicans their due they campaigned on a Promise to do precisely that. But you would think democrats would be bothered about using social Security for this regressive Transfer of wealth. The deficit As misleadingly calculated for fiscal 1989 was about $160 Bil lion. It was $160 billion even though the social Security surplus $50-Somc billion and rising about $10 billion a year $115,000 an hour was counted in with the rest of the government s Revenue. If the social Security surplus and unspent tax revenues in medicare civil service and military retirement Highway and Airport Trust funds were taken out of the equation the government s unmasked operating deficit would be approaching $300 billion. But watch your our language. The real name for the social Security surplus is  unfortunately for taxpayers and retirees beginning around 2030, the reserves arc not being reserved. They Are supposed to be there when the current ratio of workers to Reti Rees shifts toward fewer workers and More retirees. Then the reserves arc to be drawn Down to Zero around 20so. But because the reserves arc being treated like a surplus like a Windfall the nation is sleepwalking toward one of three or a combination of three Nasty choices. They arc huge tax increases to fund social Security s promises fro general revenues staggering amounts of borrowing to fund the system or repudiation of the great compact with the people and contraction of social Security into a Means tested welfare program. By then today s political class will be Long gone. That is Why the country proceeds with a misuse of resources on Ascale guaranteed to damage its Standard of living. This misuse will mean worse Industry science Medicine every thing for our children s children than they would have had if we were not foist ing upon them through improvident borrowing a Large portion of the costs of our Standard of living. Sen. Warren Rudman has always Caj cd Gramm Rudman a bad idea whose time hey we be Cotta Stop that traitor from destroying the very foundations of this country has come because it exerts some pressure for deficit reduction without it the deficit would have risen faster than it has these last two years. But How do you count the Cost of the increase in Washington s cd v cynicism quotient it is probably a felony a crime against consumerism to print a mis leading health claim on a Box of Corn flakes. But bipartisan deception of the nation about the real size regressive financing and ruinous consequences of the deficit that is Foi Lue. The Jirec Sidcot says to fico fellow politicians who nod Content edly hey we weren t sent Here to Bicker. C Washingion Post writers group things liven up on Senate floor offer Midnight the British parliament holds most of its ses Sions at night. The debates arc Short and spirited. There arc bars All Over the place and at times it gets very spirited indeed. Our Congress meets in the afternoon and its debates lend to be desultory. It is not impossible to get a drink in the Capitol but the booze is mostly kept in lower left hand desk drawers and other such discreet hideaways. The jugs rarely appear until the adjournment Bells have rung. No cause and of fact relationship can be proved from these observable differences in the daily calendars and the imbibing patterns of these two great legislative bodies. But it has been my observation in More than 30 years of Congress watching that great bursts of eloquence often coincide with late night sessions of the Senate. Those were not rarities in the late 1950s and Early 1960s, when civil rights measures routinely Drew Southern filibusters and the Senate was put into round the clock sessions in order to Force a vote. As a Novice reporter at the late lamented Washington Star i had the 11 p.m.-to-7 . Shift on the civil rights filibuster of i960. It produced Many memorably funny and dramatic moments and left me with a thoroughly distorted picture of the liveliness of Senate debate. A bit of that feeling returned one night last week when the Senate again found itself in session Long after Midnight. The starting Point was no More elevated than the segregationist cause that triggered the 1960 filibuster. Sen. Jesse Helms , was trying to put the Senate on record against dirty pictures. Two exhibitions of Raunchy Art funded in part by the National endowment for the arts had drawn the Wrath of those who argued that this was a highly questionable use of scarce taxpayer provided subsidies. Helms who knows what stirs the voters juices seized the provocation and two months ago shoved through the Senate on a voice vote an anti smut amendment. It was so broadly drawn that it might have required a Federal Grant maker faced with a request to buy books for a children s Library to get affidavits about what was really going on Between Little to Peep and All those sheep. Not Content with that Victory Helms came Back a second time demanding that his colleagues reinforce their profession of virtue by a Roll Call vote instruct ing the Senate conferees to insist to their House counterparts that the sweeping smut ban be included in the final Law. That was too much for most senators to Swallow at least at that time of the night. John Danforth r mo., who is an episcopal priest said he could just Sec the faces of the people of Sedalia or Cabool or Moun Tain Grove mo., if they were told that they had to Payfor the kind of Art in the two offending exhibitions. But when Helms sought to bar subsidies to any mate rial which denigrates the objects or beliefs of the adherents of a particular religion or non religion Dan Forth said he had to wonder if it might not prevent a performance of the merchant of Venice or even a rendition of Onward Christian  two former state attorneys general Warren Rudman r-n.h., and Slade Gorton r-wash., said the Helms language was so overdrawn As to be absolutely absurd and totally dangerous Gorton and unenforceable Rudman. Majority Leader George Mitchell a Maine a former Federal judge said he agreed. Patrick j. Leahy d-vt., said out loud what a lol of his colleagues were thinking that perhaps Helms Pur pose in insisting on a Roll Call vote was not so much legislative As political. Clever people said Leahy might like a vote that would allow opponents in some future Campaign to run a 30-Sccond and that says sen Ator so and so supports  sometimes that thought scares senators out of their wits. But at this time of night it seemed just to screw up their courage. Former Harvard professor and ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan d-n.y., gave the Senate galleries a Fine rendition of Ogden Nash s Salute to an earlier crusader for decency sen. Reed Smoot a Utah senator Smoot Republican it is planning a ban on smut. Root toot toot for Smoot of it. And his reverend Occiput. Well the Senate did t go Root tool toot but it did Railroad the nonsensical Helms amendment out of the Law by a 62-35 vote and i m not sure it would have happened quite so decisively or stylishly if it had come up at 2 30 in the afternoon. C Washington Post Ortun group