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The economic trouble, complex and long in the making, resists rhetoric and simple -- or even difficult -- solutions. The air last week was thick with contradictions, with speculative shadows and smoke. Were the nation's huge trade and budget deficits really the problem? The point was expertly argued both ways. Would raising taxes now help the economy or send the economy into a recession? Reagan was expected to lower the budget deficit, soothe the markets, bring down interest rates and keep the dollar steady. At the same time, he must be careful not to discourage consumer spending and capital investment. Reagan, believer in the genius of the free market, instinctively recoils at Government fixes, especially in a tangle as dense as this. Still, fatalism in the face of complexity is not part of Reagan's job description.
Fate nonetheless has often been on Reagan's side, and may be again. Last week he arranged a summit with Gorbachev and nominated a new Justice to the Supreme Court. Reagan has always had luck and a sunny talent to bounce back.
In the '30s Ortega y Gasset wrote, "Before long there will be heard throughout the planet a formidable cry, rising like the howling of innumerable dogs to the stars, asking for someone or something to take command." The world was not exactly howling last week, just casting its gaze around anxiously.
If Reagan's leadership seemed to be failing, where else would the nation look for guidance? The race of leaders seemed to have vanished like the Maya. "It's a very bad time in the political cycle to expect leadership from either branch of Government," observed Political Analyst Kevin Phillips. "Under the best circumstances, Ronald Reagan would not be the best manager of a crisis, with his feel-good economics. And you can't expect Congress to anticipate the outcome of the next election and act boldly."
In the American scheme of things, Congress should have a powerful voice. Congress has drearily been undistinguished, afflicted by the spirit of the age. It is a much fragmented assortment of 634 individuals, each with separate interests and agendas. Party discipline is slack.
Congressmen rail against the Pentagon budget in the morning, and then in the afternoon make it clear that the military base in their district must not be closed. Leadership at that level finds it hard to decide between the general abstract and the personal local.
And thus the congressional system seems stacked against fiscal prudence, against putting the national interest over special interests. There are votes to be had for talking about spending restraint, but not for exercising it; each member, in the end, feels judged by what projects he can bring home to his district, by what pet programs he can protect for his constituency groups.
The twelve presidential candidates in both parties are going through their auditions, exhibiting themselves in the postures of leadership. But only those who are least likely to be nominated show any willingness to talk realistically about ways to cut the deficit. Says one of those, Democrat Bruce Babbitt: "We've evolved a cycle of dishonesty in our national discourse. Politicians don't tell the necessary but unpleasant truths because they are afraid that the voters will kill the messenger. So people learn not to expect the truth from politicians."