European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - October 17, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes wednesday october 17.1990 Olumn Walter r. Mea slip Reading less taxing than mind Reading Reading president Bush slips was a lot easier than Reading his mind about taxes As demonstrated in his on off switch on a bargain to boost the top income tax rate. After raising the possibility Bush hedged reopened hedged and for a while seemed to be enjoying the confusion before he finally said no Deal. That stirred up the chronic factional strife in Congress and within the Republican minority escalated the discord Over an assortment of rival budget plans and threats. The White House and Congress re Niblic ans and democrats All look like Osers in the stalemate Over their most a it asic assignment the Long overdue task of financing Federal operations. Doomsday comes on Friday when the government again will run out of spending authority unless the Congress finally produces a budget and Bush signs off on its terms. It is a deadline Bush said he will not waive by accepting a temporary Extension of spending authority without an Overall budget settlement. He said the clock is going to keep running because without that pressure Congress  do anything. A they arc going to have to stay in town and pass a budget a vice president Dan Quayle said in a lbs interview As the rival tax writers staked out their latest positions on the sunday television talk shows. Quot the president is simply not going to let the Congress go Home until they pass a Good deficit reduction plan that is going to avoid a  beyond that there has been no Clear White House strategy since the rejection of the earlier budget Deal produced in five months of negotiations and abruptly spurned by the House. There certainly was no game plan showing last week when Bush reopened the old idea of swapping an increase in the top tax rate for a Cut in capital gains taxes the latter an elusive goal of his since the 1988 Campaign. He said there would have to be proper balance Between the boost and the Cut the idea was tried in Summit negotiations and failed because democrats and republicans never could agree on a proper balance. Democrats wanted a higher tax rate and a smaller capital gains reduction than Bush was willing to accept. In rerun the same dispute made the same deadlock inevitable. He even parodied his most famous Campaign slogan. A read my hips a he said when asked while jogging whether he was dropping the capital gains reduction. Finally in a written statement on thursday he said he did no to think the Trade would work and called it a waste of time. A indeed in a quite concerned that pursuing it in the current context May not Only fail it May legitimize something farther to the left that we cannot accept a Bush said. A <qi990 after reviving the idea Bush gave Republican senators the impression head drop it but his spokesman then revived it. Campaigning last wednesday the president seemed to be enjoying the confusion. He did no to say Why he restarted the Pursuit. While the capital gains tax he wanted is out of the bidding the higher income tax rate he vehemently opposes is not. House democratic tax writers Are pushing a top rate of 33 percent to apply to All upper income taxpayers. Quayle says the administration is violently opposed. Bush would be almost certain to veto a budget that included the upper income tax boost. The democrats Are using the tax dispute in an attempt to depict republicans As the party of the Rich. Rep. Dan Rostenkowski d-ill., chairman of the ways and Means committee said he  deny that they Are trying to make a political statement by pushing the tax rate increase in the House. The Senate finance committee wants to raise taxes without changing the top Overall tax rate by limiting itemized deductions for upper income americans sen. Lloyd Bentsen a Texas called it a Back door route to the same outcome. Nevertheless the White House is willing to Swallow a settlement on those lines increasing income taxes so Long As there is no increase in the rate. But conservative republicans would rather fight than switch to any tax increases. So would gop candidates who took the hard Bush line against new taxes Early in the Campaign and have seen that Issue undercut. As he campaigns Bush is telling republicans they need to stand firm for the Best budget possible. The trouble is that gop factions disagree with each other As Well As with democrats on what that is. The associated press William Safire Sce just another Basket-3 Case for soviets upon hearing that the transcendentalist Margaret Fuller had said a i accept the universe a the historian Thomas Carlyle delivered this withering put Down a by god shed better a i accept the Csc. My 18-year Battle against the conference on Security and cooperation in Europe is Over. Five weeks from now in Paris amidst posturing and Hoo having at the ministerial level a new regional agglomeration of nations will be institutionalized. This will ultimately Lead to a vast secretariat a limousines lifetime sinecure 24-hour cocktail lounges the diplomatic works a headquartered in Prague or Budapest to be wedged Between an identity critical nato and a cumbrous . It All began in 1972, the heyday of deceptive detente when Leonid Brezhnev wanted the West to ratify soviet claims to the Baltic states and a chunk of prewar Poland. His bait he would agree to our desire for a Mutual and balanced forces reduction negotiation which president Nixon needed to relieve sen. Mike Mansfield a pressure for withdrawal of our troops in return for an All european a a Security conference that would treat present Borders As permanent. Henry Kissinger went for the Deal leading president Ford to a Helsinki signing in 1975. Because hard liners in the . Grumbled our Side insisted on a a Basket 3�?� in the final agreement calling for human rights in each of the signatories with a Tollow up conference to review Progress. The soviets got what they wanted a de Facto Border gains a but had no intention of reducing troop Levels mfr talks went nowhere or of honouring human rights pledges. We eighties went ballistic about this double Cross demanding that we a rescind Helsinki unless soviet dissenters were freed. After one such diatribe in this space a Brezhnev an Flack at the no Vosti Agency in Moscow sent a letter to the new York times a in order to cure the cold or. Safire claims to have diagnosed a wrote Gennadi Gerasimov a the suggests in fact removing the head. Just think of the consequences for  Afghanistan followed. But the hard line suggestion that the Helsinki agreement could be rescinded if Moscow ignored it was a useful prod. Equally useful i now admit was the cot Tage Industry that grew around the world to Monitor the Accord. A Basket 3�?� turned out to be a propaganda headache for Brezhnev. That was then. Now the handsome Gennadi is peddling perestroika and touting Csc. With the Warsaw pact in shambles his latest Boss wants to replace nato with a european Alliance in which Moscow and Washington would have equal influence in a a Center to prevent  the new soviet interest in Csc is to break up the military Alliance facing Moscow a troops before soviet disarmament and to enter the West a Economy before accepting capitalism. No thanks. Before creating a new regional association to provide shelter for homeless sex superpowers we should insist on evidence of deep soviet arms cuts and thorough economic Reform. Asking too much hardly Only when we linked the soviet sought Paris Csc talks to Progress on ending the imbalance of conventional forces in Eastern Europe did Moscow Stop stonewalling. The second round of these arms talks aimed at halving the new balance of troops and tanks and planes ought to re main the business of nato and Moscow with a prevention of conflict outside Csc at least in its formative years. Our interest in Csc should be in forming an organization qualitatively better than the . Its primary purpose should be to Advance political Freedom and human rights within each of the signatories. Tyranny and torture Are not a internal  sanctions should be built in to prevent the decade Long contempt for Basket 3 that the Brezhnev ites displayed. And lets give the group an accurate name. Drop a a Security from the title because it is not a military Alliance but an association to promote individual Freedom drop a Europe a too because this grouping stretches from Vancouver to Vladivostok and save us from alphabet soup. Send suggestions to name that league the new York times 1627 i st., Washington . 20006. Henry a baby has come of age. The new trans Atlantic Community of 37 nations a no Deal of course unless it includes the three Independent Baltic nations a could be a Freedom forum and an economic discipline. That a Why i accept it. By god head better c new York times