CONGRESS SCRAPS ITS `DEFICIT REDUCTION' ON FIRST DAY BACK

For most of 1990, our geniuses in Washington labored, and labored, and labored, and brought forth a "Deficit Reduction Agreement." As predicted here on several occasions recently, the federal deficit not only is not shrinking it is now expanding, as the spenders are loosed, and less-than-robust revenues from a recession-shrunken economy widen the gap.

And what was the prescription of our geniuses at Washington's "Budget Summit", in Congress and the administration assembled? With the economy a sick man, flat on his back and beginning to run a recessionary fever, what medicine did they prescribe?

Hit him with taxes! Tax his beer! Tax his whiskey! Tax his cigarettes! Tax his interest income, and his savings, and call them "unearned!" Tax his dividends, and his corporate income tax them twice! Tax his gasoline, tax his diesel fuel, and anything else that moves!

Is the consumer uncertain, ready to rein in on the spending that fuels two-thirds of our economy? Why, then take more money out of his hide, and send it to our imperial capital on the Potomac. There, that'll make the patient better now, won't it?

Interesting, isn't it? The tax increases Congress got George Bush to sign onto are permanent! Not so, the "spending restraints". These "spending restraints" solemnly enacted in the "Deficit Reduction Agreement" produced by last year's "Budget Summit" extravaganza are as fleeting as late April snow flurries.

The House of Representatives convened last week for the opening session of the 102nd Congress. In the new session's first 24 hours, Tom Foley's and Dick Gephardt's majority voted to renege on a critical part of the agreement they conned President Bush into making less than 90 days ago. This was essential to permit the Permanent Spenders of the Permanent Congress to open the floodgates on spending your tax money.

The Wall Street Journal commented editorially, recalling the sincere cooperation President Bush sounded in his Inaugural Address just two years ago this month:

"`To my Democratic friends and yes, I do mean friends in the loyal opposition and yes, I do mean loyal: I put out my hand. I am putting out my hand to you, Mr. Speaker (Foley). I am putting out my hand to you, Mr. Majority Leader (Gephardt).'

"These were Mr. Bush's words on Inauguration Day, 1989. On its first day back last week, the House voted to kill a key part of the budget deal it made with the White House, transferring program-cost estimates from OMB (Office of Management and Budget) to Congress's own agency. George Bush probably would have had more chance of seeing this agreement honored if he'd made it with Don Corleone."

Gee whiz. Would you have thought that even these folks would betray us all, and themselves, so very soon?

Tom Foley has been in Congress since 1964, Dick Gephardt since 1976. Term limitations for Congressmen, anyone?

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Meanwhile, Mr. Gephardt has thought, and thought, and thought, and delivered his considered pronouncement on what Congress can contribute toward our Persian Gulf intervention. Gephardt's wisdom? Should President Bush launch offensive actions without Hill approval, Congress can cut off funds backing our troops in the desert, says the distinguished House Majority Leader.

Wednesday morning's Post-Dispatch informs us that Gephardt and his braintrust are ginning up fundraising ("$2 million has been mentioned") for a possible 1992 presidential campaign.

I wonder. Somehow, the ringing slogan "First to cut off funds to our troops in the desert!" seems unlikely to send the multitudes thronging toward the Gephardt campaign.

I listened carefully as Gephardt spoke at a convention in Kansas City last September. As he was newly returned from a trip visiting our forces in Saudi Arabia, you would have sworn that it was General George Patton speaking, not the House Majority Leader, so tough was his rhetoric of those days. But that was September, when public support for the President's policy was still undiluted, and this is now. It's time to strike a new pose.

Dick Gephardt is a profoundly frivolous man, an empty vessel, a fount of idle chatter, endlessly posturing, a cork bobbing on a sea of his own press clippings, his fine hair looking impressive throughout. All Washington is mightily impressed.

Pat Buchanan had it right in his column on this page Monday. "The Cowards of Capitol Hill."

Meanwhile, others understand that we are at risk in a dangerous world. It's a measure of how far official Washington has sunk that Gephardt is not only taken seriously by national media and Washington politicos alike, but actually exalted by them into Capitol Hill's facsimile of a heavyweight.

Reports filtering out of Washington suggest that a new attitude one that relishes open and sharp confrontation with Congress is taking hold within the previously conciliatory Bush White House. Let us pray God this is so. No matter what pose the Majority Leader adopts this week, the Richard Gephardts are not to be feared. President Bush has much to gain by facing up to him, drawing the sharpest possible contrast, and having it out with a Congress that would choose him as its "leader."