European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - June 20, 1992, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Saturday june 20, 1992 the stars and stripes a Page 13commentaryellen Goodman importance of fathers a present and absent lately in be had Jake on my mind. Its because of fathers Day in a sure. The Wann and wiggly cards and messages and ads Are All Over the place. Any gals mind could wander to thoughts of a Man like Jake. Its because of Dan Quayle too. The Man is running for president a oops vice president a against a a cultural elite that says a fathers Are  he reminds me that Jake dispensed of himself. But mostly its because of rerun season. Just last week television went Back to the beginning of Murphy Browne Snow mythic pregnancy to the wonderful moment when Jake discovered he was going to be a dad. Did he faint in a dead Heap 1950s style when Murphy broke the news Flash from her pregnancy testing kits did he Blush with pleasure and run out to buy her pickles. No Murphy sex husband who had lobbied to become Murphy a second husband told her that he had to go and save the world. Good Luck and goodbye. So i have had Jake on my mind. I Hope that he found some new and rare species of insects while trying to preserve the rain Forest. I Hope that they bit him badly. That sort of thing. But i have also been thinking that when the controversy erupted Over Murphy Brown it missed the Mark. Jake was the juicier target. Last week Quayle said a the elites culture is a guilt free culture. It avoids responsibility and flees  if he was thinking of Murphy he was one Lap outside the mainstream. You re looking for a villain i give you the unwed and unwilling to wed father. Looking for a consequence Fleer i give you Jake. In the last decade we be mapped All sorts of gaps that have grown in America Between the haves and have not. Of these the widest is Between children who have and have not fathers in their lives. Out of this Gap has come our two favorite fathers Day images the new father and the Deadbeat dad. On the one hand we have a picture of a father who is As involved emotionally with Nis kids As he is economically. On the other hand we have a father who is Only seen when his state posts his picture on the ten most wanted list for child support payments. If americans Ever harboured the notion that a fathers Are dispensable a its Long gone. From Iron John to Boyz n the Hood to the latest documentary on the family to the latest study of welfare policy the focus is on the importance of fathers As a presence and an a Scricc it May be that we have exaggerated the number of new fathers in this process. But the Deadbeat dad May also have become too generic a villain. Jake has become As much of a stereotype As Murphy. The father on the Lam the seed and leave Man on either end of the socioeconomic ladder is Only part of a very complicated Story that we Are just beginning to hear and Tell. As Frank Furstenburg one of the few to listen to and chronicle the vanishing father is Quick to say a there is no single reason Why men disengage from  at one extreme says the University of Pennsylvania researcher Are men who have Little More than fleeting Contact with the biological Mother. At the other extreme Are men who lived with their children Over Many years until the relationship broke apart. All unmarried fathers Are not As the state would sometimes have us believe deadbeats. All divorced fathers Are not As the men dragged into court would have us believe broke. All fathers Are not As some menus groups would have us believe kept from their kids by sex wives who use the child support checks for themselves. Though some agrees Furstenburg arc All of these things. What we know so far is that Many men Sec marriage and children As a package Deal and when the package unravels they May return it All. I he fear about the fraying of fatherhood has limited Public debate this Way to marriage or Money. Restore one go after the other. Indeed the wish that we could put together the he Repty dumpty of Many marriages Hope our Way Back to a society with one nuclear family Model can in Furstenberge swords a prevent us from focusing on the ties Between fathers and  the truth is that we have paid Little attention to Why some men remain in their children a lives and others fade away. But if we cannot put together the traditional cultural package with rhetoric or will we have a lot to learn about strategies that Foster connections Between men and their children. Someday even baby boy Brown is going to want to meet a Guy named Jake. C Tho  Colobo George f. Will government s reputation continues to fall the Specter of a constitutional amendment requiring balanced budgets no longer haunts Washington. The amendment has been Defeated the status quo is Safe. And it is altogether appropriate that More than the nine vote margin of defeat the vote was 280-153 in favor of it but Short of the two thirds required was provided by 12 democrats who cosponsored the amendment and then opposed it. They gave their written words which were worthless. If you do not mind being fed fibs and dissimulation by people whose deceits presuppose you Are dimwitted the arguments of the opponents of the amendment were entertaining. The opponents in Congress and their allies in the Public employees unions the american association of retired persons the conference of mayors and Many other factions interested in increasing government spending said they were worried that the amendment  work. Yes they were up in arms against the amendment because they thought it would be impotent. The opponents also said the amendment was an evasion of duty an excuse for not making a Tough choices to reduce the deficit right now. You see the Public employees unions mayors Harp and the rest just can to wait to get started. Congressional opponents of the amendment said we so love the Constitution we cannot Bear to injure it with an amendment that Congress a we a would ignore or evade. They said that if Congress lacks the a courage for those a Tough choices a no amendment will create courage. So much for the oath they take swearing to uphold the Constitution. Why would obeying the amended Constitution require stupendous superhuman not to by asked courage because balancing the budget would require decisions raising taxes cutting spending inconvenient for the primary business of today a Congress incumbency Protection. There Are just two things that three fourths of the american people want that Congress will not permit. One is a balanced budget amendment the other is Terra limits for legislators. These Are anathema to Congress because careerism is the shared Creed of democrats and re Public rats and deficit spending a burdening future voters to buy today a voters a is the key to careerism. A balanced budget amendment would be much less necessary if con Ressy culture of spending were changed y term limits which would change the motives and behaviour of legislators. A term limitation amendment is currently bottled up in the hostile House judiciary committee chaired by 20-term Jack Brooks a Texas Democrat. Opponents of term limits say they oppose limits because they Are  opponents so love democracy they will not allow a vote on limits. Many congressional candidates a aspiring careerists now clawing their Way toward Congress a Are courting voters by endorsing term limits. But if they get there and Are asked to help pry the amendment from the grip of the judiciary committee a discharge petition requires 218 signature Many of them probably will do what the dirty dozen co sponsors of the balanced budget amendment did they will say they were just kidding. The Washington Post and the new York times and other thunderer against the balanced budget amendment deplore the fact that the Public a strongest political passion is tax phobia. But that passion is the Public a judgment on the competence and motives of the careerists who dominate Congress and whose purpose for mis allocating resources is re election. There Are sensible people who think government revenues should be a larger portion of Gnu and sensible people who say they should be less and sensible people who think the current portion is about right. But no sensible person defends the pattern of current spending which is a result of re election rationales. Hitherto i have said government needs More revenues. Now my position is no tax increase of any sort or any size Lor any purpose a not one Nickel until term limitation has ended the careerism that depends on deficit spending. Rep. Vin Weber the Minnesota Republican who is leaving Congress at age 39, says he has read a lot of the Campaign literature of Republican candidates who May be coming to Congress in january and he is depressed. The candidates Are running on promises not to Cash checks at a Bank that no longer exists not to use the House gym or Barbershop and to give their parking places to homeless families. But of course. Such candidates like Many of the current members of Congress do not want to do something they just want to be something incumbents forever. With the help of deficit spending Many of them will be. And government s reputation will continue to plummet. And the Washington Post and the new York times and other sad liberals will wonder Why the Public is so tight isted. C Tiu we bin a Tuii Post writers group