European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - July 29, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                James j.  pay raise merits Only muted outcry i the my Lar. Of in a la a n re .1 evening of july 17, sen. Robert c. Byrd d-w.va., was talking about his Bill to raise the pay of senators. This is a great Issue to demagogue a he said and he went on to prove it. A Byrds amendment to the legislative appropriation Bill will give senators a raise of $23,200 a year boosting their salaries to $125,100. This will put them on a Par with members of the House who gave themselves the same raise a year ago. In Exchange for the pay hike senators we a 8ive up honorariums that now May amount to $23,000 annually. Fair enough. Byrd  Fine until he got toward the end of his oration. Then he began to lament the consequences if the raise were disapproved. He feared for a slow erosion a of the Quality of the men and the women who offer their talents for service in the  warming to his theme Byrd feared that without the raise a there will not be any welders that come out of the shipyards of Baltimore and stand in this  a salary of Only $101,900 would not attract a meat Cutter or garbage boy to seek a seat in the Senate. No produce seller or even Small business person would come Here to give of their talents. Ours should be a citizens government said the senator. His voice trembled with emotion. He invoked the sons of Coal miners. A the farm boy out there working on the Plains in the frosty morning and late at night should be encouraged As Well As the Rich Many a son to aspire to a Senate  Byrd asked gods blessings upon the Senate a millionaires. He did not envy them at All. He wished he were among them. A but let us open the doors to a few poor folks who May aspire to run for the . Senate As  in the press gallery hardened reporters openly wept. Senators must Haye been equally moved. A Little before 10 of clock they voted 53-45 to take the raise. Viewed in principle a congressional salary of $125,100 a year plus fringe benefits and Plush perquisites is defensible. It is not too much. The responsibility is heavy. The work is demanding. At the new salary level members will have a Little less in purchasing Power than they had in 1969. In a $2.3 billion Bill for legislative expenses this $2.3 million disappears beyond the Decimal Points. Getting rid of these a a odious honorariums As Byrd termed them is net gain. The Only rational criticism that May be offered of course is that members of Congress As a body Haven to earned a raise and done to deserve it. On their record of performance members Are an irresponsible and incompetent lot. State Legislatures across the country Are demonstrating the political courage to bring their budgets into balance. No such courage is visible in Wash Anthony Lewis in ton. Our Federal budget will not be balanced until the next Century if Ever. President Bush bears a part of the blame but the bulk of it lies right on Capitol Hill. Maybe the garbage boys could do better. Along with the hokum Byrds remarks contained much that was the very essence of truth and Candor. In the past he acknowledged he had been one of Many senators who had accepted speaking fees from special interests. The practice is Legal he said. Senators have to report the fees. A but not everything that is Legal is necessarily  there is nothing honorable about honorariums. It is simply a Way for special interests to gain Access to senators and in doing so the special interests Hope a Hope a to influence senators. A the perception a Byrd said a that members Are Beholden to the special interests is reinforced by the system. The senator who receives the Honor aria May. Indeed not be influenced thereby but the perception is to the contrary and the damage is done and it is done to the  not a senator Rose to deny it. Under the system that now will be abolished senators could pick up $2,000 for merely having breakfast with a special interest group and answering a few questions. This was not outright bribery but it was the next thing to it. The speaking fees were directly personal. They were subtly different from the Campaign contributions that come from political action committees. The Senate vote produced a Pipsqueak eruption from Ralph Nader the Peoples most obnoxious Friend but this was to be expected. A few senators who voted for the raise May be in political trouble next year. Most voters i Hope will conclude that on balance the raise justifies not a scream but a sigh. C Universal press Syndicate Reagan ites sabotaged . Community life Over this summer millions of americans have rediscovered what Ronald Reagan and the new right worked so hard to deny we need government. It has been the summer of fiscal crises. New York California Connecticut Massachusetts Maine and other states have gone through extraordinary struggles to balance their budgets. And All had to make severe cuts in Public services. According to the conservative ideology that bloomed in the Reagan years we should have welcomed those cuts. Government is the enemy we were told. It wastes our Money. Most of what it does private individuals or institutions could do better. By and Large government should be limited to policing the streets and protecting the National Security. But the state and local budget cuts this summer reminded us How Many other things governments do that Are essential to our Well being. They educate most of our children. They protect the Public health. They Light the streets and clean them. They maintain the infrastructure that makes Urban society bearable. Many of those functions suffered in the budget cuts. When Public schools open in the fall they will be even More overburdened and underfunded. In new York City the work of exterminating rats will be drastically Cut. Andy Logan writing in the new yorker figures that in a year the City May have a million More rats. Then there Are the amenities that add up to civilization. Public libraries in Boston and new York and Many other cities Are forced to reduce their hours and services. There is no Money for libraries and schools or for music classes. Funds for Parks and museums Are shrinking. Local governments Are not blameless. Their bureaucracy tends to grow and stagnate. New York City has lost population in the last 30 years but the number of City employees has increased by almost. 50 percent. But All the efficiency in the world would not restore services to a desirable level. The Money is not there. As we begin to feel the social Cost of fiscal crisis we should also understand where a Large part of the responsibility for the crisis lies with president Reagan and his anti government theoreticians. The Reagan administration ended Revenue sharing with painful consequences for local governments. In 1980, Federal funds covered nearly 20 percent of new York City a budget. The figure now is less than 10 percent. In addition to reducing Federal support for states and cities the Reagan administration crimped their tax revenues. That was a Side effect of cutting Federal tax rates on higher incomes. Because Many states link their income taxes to Federal returns their revenues fell. The result has been and is the impoverishment of Community life in this country. And that matters. The Reagan Ite notion that individuals can do it All for themselves is a chimera. In Urban society we cannot live in isolated cocoons a except perhaps for the very Rich and even they feel the effect of spreading ignorance disorder and squalor in society. Everyone knows that there Are urgent Domestic needs in the United states today. Take Only the most obvious. It is a scandal that american children Are so ill educated. It is a scandal that 30 million americans have no health insurance that the incidence of measles is growing for Lack of a Universal immunization. We also know if we face reality what it will take to meet those needs. It cannot be done by Glossy Cost free  it cannot be done by private initiative by a thousand Points of Light. It will take Federal leadership and Federal Money. But there again the Reagan years sabotaged Hope. The administration built the budget deficit up so High that any proposed Domestic program now meets the cry there is no Money. And that is exactly what the right Wing intellectuals intended. They ran up deficits so that government would be unable in the future to spend Money for Domestic purposes. It is a formidable legacy to overcome deliberate starvation of the resources needed for a decent Community life. To overcome it will require political leaders Able to make us see again the imperative of the Community to understand that taxes Are the Price of civilization. C the new York times the opinions expressed in the columns and cartoons on this Page represent those i f the authors and Are in no Way to be considered us representing the views of i he stars and stripes or the United states government