Ronnie Reagan's flying circus

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Stockman (left) with Treasury Chief Regan The memory of the US sponsored attack. rescue the hostages from Reagan government, faced Iran will no doubt console by continuing threats to its them: authority, is contemplating But. the operation a "limited" nuclear war in nature of US policy in the Europe. military build up is designed not believe that nuclear war rapid deployment force as a Security Advisor Richard V. threat to workers' struggles Allen. He believes that fullin the Middle Fast and scale war with the Soviet cose in relation to Central bits, why should he miss out America. where I'S imper- on some of the perks of MORE like an episode of 'Soap' than "Centennial', the saga of the Reagan administration spluttered into a new chapter last week.

The feuding warmongers and arguing axemen added new indiscretions, a full blooded recession and a whiff of scandal to their ten-month catalogue of disasters.

The first setback came when Reagan's whizzkid Budget Director David Stockman was extensively quoted in Atlantic Monthly' magazine expressing profound self-doubts on the government's economic strategy.

He confessed that his own budget cuts-still being rammed through Congresswere "hastily prepared and enacted": He derided the central tenet of "Reaganomics"-the theory that tax cuts alone are the key to increased productivity and industrial activity.

Metaphor

And-perhaps most damagingly-Stockman (who should know) described Reagan's programme of sweeping cuts in income taxes as Ma Trojan Horse designed in reality to favour the rich":

Across-the board tax cuts were, he admitted, designed primarily as a means of puring a lowering of the a rate of tax on the rich from 70% to 50%.

The interview created an immediate furore in the Reagan camp-particularly when Stockman was forced to acknowledge that the quotes are . an accurate record of his comments.

He was forced to issue an immediate grovelling apology-which, however, simply underlined the cynicism of Reagan's economic policies. It was wrong to use the Trojan Horse analogy, he said, because "The Trojan Horse is a wooden beast without a brain. If I had recalled that, I never would have used that metaphor."

In other words the tax cuts policy is not an unconscious but a conscious move to con and rip off American workers in the interests of the richest employers!

And his shrewd analysis in the interview of his own package of policies was unconvincingly passed off as *my own careless ramblings to a reporter."

Stockman's attempt to repair the damage might have carried more conviction if the whole affair had not blown up in a month which has confirmed that Reagan's economic programme is heading even more rapidly towards disaster than Thatcher's monetarist experiments in Britain.

Slump

The figures for US unemployment show a rise of over 900,000 in the last iwo months, as a full-scale recession has brought layoffs and a drop in production throughout US industry.

•At •the same time inflation is back up to the 15% level, with no signs of relief in! sight. And, as a result of this headlong plunge into slump, Reagan's budget deficit is now certain to go soaring way above the $60 billion previously anticipated.

Assault

More savage cutbacks in Federal spending are therefore on the way: But one sacred cow unlikely to be touched by the Reagan axe is military spending-the unbridled scope of which has been one of Stockman's gripes.

Last weekend saw major US military manoeuvres in the Middle East and North East "Horn" of : Africa involving the Carter/Reagan *Rapid Deployment Force' in an airborne assault on an empty strip of Egyptian desert.

The aim of 'Operation Bright Star' was. in the words: of commander-in-chief General Kingston. 10 prove that he could get an airborne batallion anywhere in the world within 24 hours.

The manoeuvres, indlude exercises in Sudan, Somalia, and Oman designed to reaffirm US military domination over the Gulf areawhich has been weakened since the fall of the Shah of Iran-and to register a dire warning to the Libyan regime of Colonel Gaddafi.

Whether Gaddafi or the Arab masses will be impressed by the possibility of one battalion of lightly armed troops arriving by air (with their tanks and perannal marriers arrivins some card ar days later) is one thing.

fiasco of the US attempt to Inevitable confirms the aggressive Middle East. And Reagan's to expand and improve the throughout the world.

This is particularly the ialism. faced with the weakRingmaster Reagan ening of the right wing junta in El Salvador, is attempting to stop the rot by making threats against the Sandinista regime Nicaragua, and even Castro's Stalinist regime in Cuba.

• Both the Sandinistas and the Cubans have responded by putting military forces on the alert against any possible The fact is that the desperate measures-ranging from sabre-rattling through "conventional" invasions One Reaganite who does can be limited or avoided is Union is inevitable. And if the world is to be blown to office?

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Socialisi Organiser. Thursday 1y Norember 195! Par 5 news-