Viewpoint
The Battalion
Texas A&M University
Wednesday
March 25, 1981
Slouch
By Jim Earle
‘Do you mean it? Today isn't April Fool's Day?
Contrasting views
from inside, outside
By DAVID S. BRODER
WASHINGTON — “We are not to be
come part of the bureaucracy,” Secretary of
Interior James Watt says. “Frequent
Cabinet meetings keep us isolated and in
unity. There’s comfort in that.”
That is just one of the fascinating and
conflicting views of the Reagan Administra
tion offered in the new issue of Public Opin
ion magazine, the always provocative jour
nal published by the American Enteiprise
Institute. The insider view is offered in a
joint interview with Watt and Ambassador
to the United Nations Jeane J. Kirkpatrick;
the outsider view, by Herbert Stein, the
conservative economist who has seen it all
before as a member and chairman of the
Council of Economic Advisers in the Nixon
Administration.
The contrast in perspectives could not be
more dramatic. Kirkpatrick, a political sci
ence professor, and Watt, a successful
attorney, are among the brightest and most
ideologically sophisticated people in the
Cabinet.
She says in the interview that “the pur
suit and defense of the American national
interest is a moral goal fitting for a free
people. ” He says he has a “theological com
mitment” to the belief that in “seeking to
establish the freedom of the individual,” he
can also assure the “accountablility of that
free individual not only to society and its
fellow members but to a higher authority,
being God.”
Well, this is weighty stuff, but what is
striking is the chirpy tone in which these
two heavy thinkers describe the euphoric
sensations of being part of the Reagan
movement. The tone is less that of a skep
tical scholar or a cautious lawyer than that of
teen-agers telling their friends about their
first dates.
“We are not to become part of the
bureaucracy,” Watt says. “Frequent
Cabinet meetings keep us isolated and in
unity. There’s comfort in that. When I go
against my bureaucracy, the issues are
often against me. But when I come back to
the fold, I am nurtured.”
Kirkpatrick sounds the same theme.
“Frequent Cabinet meetings serve to re
mind us that we are a team, that we have
certain shared pruposes, and that these
purposes override all our other functions.
The idea of collective decision-making con
tinually reaffirms our corporate identity
and purpose .... I come out of every
Cabinet meeting feeling good. I almost al
ways go in concerned about problems in
my own area. And I come out of them
almost high....”
In explicit and perhaps intentional coun
terpoint to this intellectually intoxicated
burbling, the editors lead off the magazine
with a sober — almost churlish — piece by
Stein, Nixon’s no-nonsense economist.
Stein’s message to his fellow-
conservatives is simple: Sober up. He casts
a cold, fishy eye on the rhetoric of the
Reagan administration and says the prom
ise that massive tax cuts will spur economic
growth and productivity, while funding big
increases in defense spending and protect
ing everyone against poverty is a dangerous
oversimplification.
“The whole tenor of the recent discussion
... has generated the expectation that
rather simple and pleasant measures will
yield large and prompt results in the form of
more rapid growth,” Stein writes. “This is
dangerous in many ways. One of the most
serous is that it supports the belief that the
inflation problem can be solved without
having to take any of the bitter medicine of
spending cuts, tight money, high interest
rates and unemployment. This belief is
almost certainly in error, and basing policy
upon it will lead to more inflation and to
slower rather than more rapid growth.”
And then Stein does something that no
liberal commentator would dare do. He re
minds the euphoric Reaganites that their
belief that “wishing can make it so” has led
other Republicans to disaster.
“Many examples come to mind,” he says
— and cites the cruelist. “Herbert Hoover
in 1932 recommended a tax increase in the
thought it would help restore ‘confidence’
and so get the country moving again.”
Almost 40 years later, he notes, Richard
Nixon slapped on wage and price controls,
“not because he thought they would really
cure inflation but because he thought that a
period of months in which prices did not
rise would lead the public to expect price
stability, and that would result in actual
price stability.” #
It did not, of course. At the moment, the
Reaganites are not in a mood to listen to
cautionary tales from their party’s past.
“Isolated and in unity,” they prefer to bask
in a constantly reaffirmed “corporate iden
tity and purpose.”
But those of us who do not share in the
Cabinet “high” might ponder a point Stein
makes about his fellow-conservatives.
“Conservatives,” he says, “are typically
leery of government action, and so they like
to believe in homeopathic solutions for the
problems they see — solutions which give
big results for little action.”
Warped
Dems shy away from prograu
By ROBERT SHEPARD
United Press International
WASHINGTON — Having been badly
mauled in the last election. Democrats in
Congress seem to be biding their time and
avoiding a direct confrontation with the Re
publican forces, particularly with the
Reagan White House.
Democratic leaders are clearly skeptical
of President Reagan’s plan to revive the
nation’s economy by drastic budget and tax
cuts, but they are faced with the harsh real
ity of the election sweep that put Reagan in
the White House, turned control of the
Senate over to Republicans, and sharply
reduced the Democratic majority in the
House.
The voters expressed their will and the
Democrats are not anxious to oppose that
will, lest their ranks be further decimated
in the next election. Their chief hope seems
to be that the voters will have a change of
heart or that the administration’s proposed
remedies will be proven wrong.
Speaker Thomas O’Neill promised
Reagan a political honeymoon, free of cri
ticism, for the first several months of his
administration. And in his daily meeting
with reporters, O’Neill regularly intones
that the Democrats “are not going to be
obstructionists. ”
In both the House and Senate the
Democrats have gone to remarkable
lengths to cooperate with Republicans in
arranging timetables for the administra
tion’s proposals to get prompt and fair con
sideration.
And when the administration was slow in
getting details of its economic plan to Con
gress, the Democrats complained indig
nantly that their cooperative spirit was
being abused and the committees could not
begin work on Reagan’s plan.
The Democratic leadership’s record of
cooperation with the Reagan mandate is
thus exemplary, but in their hearts the
Democrats remain firm nonbelievers. And
they expect — or at least hope — that the
public will soon see through the plan.
Whei
fWelco
Show’
Hail of
In the past few weeks, O’Neillkip? s ca '
indicated he expects the public wilpP 16 ^ 1
tually reach such an understandiniT u j
presumably, protest. Fylils;
In a recent television newsjalg r 01
O’Neill thought he saw a glimmer that,
turning tide, and promptly mentiap His
the next day in his meeting with repn ei^ce Y<
But so far O’Neill and the other
crats do not have evidence of a it|..g in0 j <:e
change in public sentiment. HecoH^ive*
that Reagan is doing a betterjobofrajj His
the public than the Democrats.
There is “widespread misunderstand
ing” about the administration’s economic
program and few people understand how
drastically they will be affected if the prog
ram goes through, O’Neill said recently.
The Democrats find comfort in t
that some of Reagan’s budget
opposed by some of his fellow Repu 1
One of the first proposals to re«
full House will be a bill todelayail
tiled increase in dairy price suppe
program that has enjoyed GOP supp! |
the past.
“I think the average person on the street
has no concept of the severe changes” in
store for them under the Reagan adminis
tration, he said.
“Opposition seems to be
Republicans themselves,” O’Neill
with satisfaction recently.
And, as if anxious to hurry tbema
Republican discomfort, O’Neill saidi
would quickly be brought upforaiij
the full House.
*a*x*r**£
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lounti
Tuesdi
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two pe
group.
It s your turn
Five
nients w
Universi
The aj
of Dr. C
I — Ch
Mr. X should give CARP a chance
— Dr
affairs, C
Dl
leee of E
Editor:
An advertisement in the March 11th
Battalion crucified a student group that is
trying to organize on campus — CARP. The
person who bought the ad (Mr. X) didn’t
identify himself/herself, but wasn’t afraid to
fill it with emotionally charged words, nar
row-minded views, and intolerance.
to what the Bible clearly states ...”
2) “The Bible is not taken literally ...
Mr. X is upset because Moon’s interpre
tation of the Bible is different from his own.
Mr. X charged CARP with being decep
tive about its affiliation with the Unification
Church. CARP members are not required
to be “Moonies” and the CARP representa
tive I spoke with told me the Unification
Church was a major supporter of CARP.
She didn’t attempt to “deceive” me —just
told me the truth.
There are many ways to understand the
Bible and a “literal interpretation” is just
one. If the Bible “clearly states” its mes
sages, then why are there so many different
Christian denominations? How can so
many people (including Mr. X) spend so
much time and money telling us what the
Bible means? How can you condemn an
individual or a group for thinking different
ly than you do?
The CARP members I’ve heard about
and the ones I’ve met really are, to lx'
Mr. X’s words”. . . harmless, loving,
God, Jesus Christ, love, unity and ft
God, Jesus Christ, love, unity am’
tion. They open their homes to yo«
invite you on weekend retreats. They
— D
Gradual
— Dr.
ducatic
Cargill
rrentl)
epartir
avis, w
you
feel
warm,
and
' ' wanted,
Well, maybe Mr. X overdid it a little, ft fej
are approximately two CARP nieW^ ■
campus, less than twenty in the entire^ ■
area. Come on, give them a break , I
David ’
Editor’s note: This letter was accompi
by 3 other signatures.
Mr. X accused CARP (I assume he meant
the Unification Church. We shouldn’t con
fuse our organizations.) of a series of “de
ceptions” involving interpretation of the Bi
ble. All of these accusations are summed up
in two sentences Mr. X wrote:
1) “... almost everything that CARP
teaches (sic) is dyametrically (sic) opposed
By Scott McCullar
The Battalion
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Editor - Dillard Stone
Managing Editor Angelique Copeland
Asst. Managing Editor Todd Woodard
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