European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 3, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Pago 10 a the stars and stripes Friday August 3, 1990 a   a a Ellen Goodman numbers Are changing on Issue i am not ordinarily a superstitious Type but in a willing to be t. Ill a. T 13 is going to be an unlucky number in he final political countdown. Cross your fingers and done to step on any crack s. L ast month the president said no to the family and medical leave act it was veto Noi j3. On july 25, on Gross tried and failed again to override the president it was failure no. 13. 1 he family leave is not some Radical or pricey piece of legislation. Even its chief supporter Republican rep. Marge Roukema a no describes it woefully As a Bill so minimal its almost an embarrassment to present  a it would give workers in companies of 50 or More employees the right to 12 weeks of unpaid Job protected leave with health benefits to take care of a new baby a seriously ill spouse or Parent. That Sall. A lot of companies do better than that. A lot of Stales demand More than that. But a lot done to. Two years ago even candidate Bush said a we. Need to assure that women done to have to worry about getting their jobs Back after having a  this year. Congress finally voted to place this floor beneath family life. I Hen the president changed his mind and the Congress came up 54 votes Short of an override. The numbers went bad. But if 13 turns out to be unlucky for some politicians it s because family leave is More than a Bill. Its become a measure of our values. In a recent Wall Street journal poll pollsters Robert William f. Buckley Teeter and Peter Hart Drew a statistical a Story on social  they revealed a country a that is not ideologically aligned with the left or the right but that has a fundamental sense of what should constitute Public morality in 1990.�?� their portrait of Public morality includes family leave. A full 71 percent of americans favor it including More than half of the people who identify themselves As social conservatives. Roukema who regards the Bush veto with the dismay of a fellow Republican explains it this Way  leave has become a defining Issue. Its about kids. Its about grandma and grandpa. Its about health care. Its about the two worker family and what it Means to be Middle class in  to be Middle class these Days Means being squeezed. Between work and family. Between Bills. Squeezed by the clocks. Squeezed by what Barbara Ehrenreich describes As a the fear of falling into poverty a an anxiety More powerful than acrophobia. This theme is Likely to appear in More than one election Campaign. The incumbent who voted against medical leave will have to explain Why he opposes the right of a Parent to take care of a baby or dying Mother without losing a Job. Hell have to explain Why american workers done to deserve the same rights As their competitors in Japan or Germany. Why we should share the precarious status of third world workers. For the most part opponents of the Bill claim to be in favor of leave but opposed to mandates. They say that mandates shackle the benefits of free Enterprise. Hut now even business leaders have broken ranks. Of the unlucky Day of the unsuccessful override vote Lawrence Perlman president and chief executive office of control a Ata wrote in the Washington Post that the Bill was a Quot moderate and appropriate response to dramatic changes in the american work Force Quot Over the years Perlman said the government has mandated a Safe workplace a minimum wage. Social Security. A congressional mandates a he said a not Only ensure fair treatment of workers but also nullify the advantage companies that do not treat their employees fairly would have Over those who  not one piece of family legislation has yet come out of this Congress or this administration. There is a greater sense of urgency about a National Bank crisis than about a National family crisis. For the most part family problems Are still defined As private personal. In that much heralded speech at Wellesley College the presidents wife told the Young graduates Quot your Success As , our Success As a society depends not on what happens in the White House but what happens inside your  not quite. Not always. Success As  Success As a society can also depend on what happens inside the White House and inside the Congress. Fora working woman with a Newborn child a working Man with a sick wife or Mother the message from Washington has been Tough Luck. But Luck Tike numbers has a Way of changing. C Tho Boston Globe newspaper compan Congress paved the Road for the a amp a debacle at 1 the Arbatova Institute in Moscow last week the soviet expert twisted his guests about the savings and Loans a we have had difficulties in our Public sector you have had difficulties in your private  what private sector a i lie people at Arbatova otherwise known As the 11.s.-c Anada Institute Are As Bright As people can he who have served a marxist government for so Many years from which one concludes that the myth is widespread that the collapse of the thrifts is a free Market disaster a which of course it is not. The $300 billion we hear about every Day or two would not exist As a liability but for government. A there is nothing More clearly a part of the Public sector than a government guarantee and it is government guarantees that cause the a amp is to he a noticeable economic phenomenon. More if it had not been for the government. The a amp is  have been m such serious trouble. I of Story the Way the communists and the democrats would like to put it goes roughly As follows deregulation was a goal of the private sector motivated by greed. Under the Reagan administration the thrifts were deregulated pursuant to Republican cupidity. Result the taxpayers Are out $300 billion. Units roughly speaking the Way democratic polemicist will want to parlay the Thrift Story perhaps nudging Neil Bush up As president sex offi Cio of a amp a inc anybody who believes that ought to work for the Arbatova Institute deregulation is a Good idea and much of it was done under the Carter administration. It was then Lor instance that air plane deregulation was done. What became visible during the iu70x was that there was a credit crunch stilling the thrifts ibis was the result Olathe deregulation of commercial Banks which began then to make Loans at commercial Rales of   pointed out that unless they could compete with the Banks they too would become  cannot entice depositors by Otle ring them 4.5 percent in interest when the Bank next door is offering 7.5 percent. A the most dramatic moment in the his we c1wt3e it a Watt amps route free to go,,  real Felon Lory of the a amp is came when in the last year of the Carter administration the ceiling on Deposit insurance was unobtrusively raised from $40,000 to $100,000. Unobtrusively because there was no Public debate on the question. Four legislators according to an eyewitness met calmly in a Back room during a temporary adjournment and decided to up the insurance. Three democrats Sens. William Proxmire and Alan Cranston and House banking committee chairman rep. Fernand St. Germain and one Republican sen. Jake a Garni simply decided that 100 grand was More like it and the next thing we knew that became the Law. 111a t wan a significant raise which immediately caught the attention of Wall Street Rooney brokers who were Happy to place $100,000 chunks of Loose change with whatever thrill m town was Otle ring the highest interest what was there to lose with Uncle Sam agreeing to guarantee the safety of the Deposit and of course the a amp Lottering the highest interest was the a amp a in the greatest trouble the Thrift that desperately needed Cash. In due course the thrifts turned to Congress with a complaint we Are free to pay whatever interest we choose to pay to our depositors under deregulation but we Are not tree under existing legislation to deregulate our  in non banking Lingo they Are saying certain things we can to lend Money on and therefore Harft make a profit on so please give us the Liberty to move away trom staid old Home mortgages and let us swing like the Bankers across the Street. Permission granted. Whereupon the thrifts went chasing alter office buildings fast food restaurants and amusement Parks. St. Germain the i v of accommodating banking committee chairman went further with a Hill authorizing the a amp is to lend up to 100 percen of an assets appraised value never min that the actual Purchase Price was lower in the words of economist Edwi Rubenstein a is amp is could now lend $ million on a $1 million project so Long a an accommodating appraiser could b found. Speculators and swindlers movie in. Their motto a Heads i win tails Folk Federal savings amp loan insurance cot to rat Ion  a a 1 he time Reagan took Olvice,.3,301 of the 3,800 thrifts were losing Money h 1986, Treasury Secretary James bake tend to gel through the democratic con Gross a $15 billion bailout plan a 5 per dec u of estimated current Federal liabilities it Wax torpedoed by House Boss Janie right and our old Friend Fernand St Germain. A classic Case tit the feds making Possi Hie an economic  j f j g .j11