Beyond Sloganeering

AT A RECENT White House News Photographers Association dinner, the President of the United States paused in his speech, struck his thumbs in his ears, and waved his fingers back and forth. "I've been waiting years to do this," the leader of the free world declared, as the appropriately prepared audience recorded the moment. It was, Ronald Reagan said, done for a laugh. But it was also perhaps the only recourse left for a man who in the past year has seen his policies slip and his coalition crumble away.

It would be quite easy, in weaving together a 12-month retrospective, to produce a mocking portrait of the sitting Administration. Its personnel problems have rivaled those of the Harding presidency, as successive agencies have been marked by incompetence or scandal. James Watt, Anne Burford and Kenneth Adelman have come to symbolize the abuse of power and the perversion of goals by those charged to pursue them Reagan's policy problems have also worsened. His depression-high unemployment and his record budget deficits contributed first to Republican losses in November's election, then to loyalty losses in Congress. The extent to which Reagan's base has eroded was demonstrated late last month, when 21 GOP senators--a coalition which backed the White House's drastic budget measures two springs ago--ignored the threat of a Reagan veto and supported a compromise proposal.

Despite these difficulties in Washington, Reagan in currently trumpeting victory in his economic war as inflation has subsided and the unemployment rate has leveled off. But the current respite promises to be only temporary; the Guinness-proportion budget deficits insure that as the jobless rate creeps back down to a respectable level, the consumer price index will once again skyrocket.

More seriously, the ugly side effects of economic hardship are still brewing throughout the country. The underlying hatred and prejudice which often plague race relations, and which are always exacerbated when groups fight over a limited pie, came out in especially bitter form in Chicago, where Democrat Harold Washington almost lost his party the mayoralty for the first time in five decades, simply because he was Black. And even the potential recovery on the horizon will not be for everyone, as the mass migration to the Sunbelt continues, while the cities of the industrial Northeast and Midwest are left to crumble in its trail.

SOME MERELY HARANGUING the president is no longer enough. It was fine when the Administration was railroading through its drastic measures, and a barrage of criticism was the only chance for a derailment. It made sense at the midterm elections, when in some districts the mere affiliation with Republicanism meant political death; eight-term Rep. Margaret Heckler of Southern Massachusetts was one such victim. Now, though, with the Reagan consensus clearly struggling, the only way to kill it off is with an appealing alternative agenda.

Reagan first succeeded because he offered simple, appealing solutions to an electorate, frustrated by the problems accompanying the dramatic economic, demographic and political trends changing the nation. He is now failing because those answers were only temporary pain-killers for a structural illness. Now, some of Reagan's more popular critics are running down the same path, courting disaster by proposing alluring but irrelevant cures as simplistic as the policies they are meant to counteract.

One answer many have seized on to decrease unemployment is imposing import restrictions. Motorcycle tariffs have been increased elevenfold. A House subcommittee passed a "domestic content" bill dictating that American cars must be made with 90 percent American materials, and the major Democratic presidential contenders have all endorsed protectionism in some form. The tragedy of "Buy American" is that it is at best a placebo--temporarily increasing job opportunities without providing real growth--and at worst a lethal measure, as other countries retaliate, choking off the 30 percent of our economy dependent on exports.

The traditional push to boost government spending--exemplified in part by the recent $4 million jobs bill--will help only those men and women who lost their jobs because of insufficient demand. But there is a growing pool of Americans who simply can't find work because they don't have the proper skills for the increasing technical industrial sector. Millions of young adults, when looking for a job, are completely unprepared to find gainful employment, or at least gainful employment in their region. At a time when training is especially crucial to match work with workers, commission after commission releases reports declaring the state of American education a disaster.

We might do well to note the example of the Japanese. Few economists advocate that the U.S. and Western Europe emulate the Japanese down the line to promote recovery: the differences in social and cultural systems between them and the West are too fundamental to warrant such a game of international Simon Says. Yet several Japanese policies deserve close attention from Reagan and the Europeans and could well represent the hope for the future. In particular, Japan's emphasis on high technology and cooperation between the government and private industry should serve as a model for the West. High technology creates new industries to replace the old, dying ones like steel and automobiles that simply can not be salvaged. Government-private sector cooperation allows for flexible long-term planning, essential if the shortcomings of the market system are to be rectified.

It is while the politicians are still searching for parts for their 1984 gubernatorial, congressional, senatorial or presidential bandwagons that we can best direct their tack. The message that these hopefuls must take to heart is not simply that our current elected representatives are heinous. Rather, they must recognize that the economic problems now affecting the country are more deeply rooted than traditional slogans and trigger responses can handle. Responsible leaders must consider it their task to direct money and brain power toward a more centralized economic coordination system--one which will aid growing business, ease the transition for dying ones, and guarantee productive and protected employment for everyone who desires it.