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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, November 7, 1980
Page 16
America's allies are in a quandary too. Even though there have been wide
spread calls for a return to U.S. free-world leadership, the reality is
that the world has moved on since America's humiliation in Vietnam in
1975. It might be more difficult than earlier assumed for the U.S. to
reassert its once-dominant role.
If the lame duck administration fails to resolve the Iranian hostage
crisis before January 20, how does Mr. Reagan accomplish the same, while
not compromising American honor and not appearing to Arab states in the
Gulf to be rearming their hated Iranian enemy?
I� is on the domestic, specifically economic, front that the new President
will have his most difficult time. How to cut taxes, the inflation rate
and unemployment while at the same time increasing defense spending and
striving for a balanced budget may prove impossible--certainly in the
short term.
How much latitude will Mr. Reagan really have in executive affairs? The
federal government bureaucracy is an elephantine beast running out-of
control, a power unto itself, beyond the efforts of any one President or
Administration to reform it. The most that the G.O.P. has done in recent
years is to try to manage better--"keep the damage in check," said one
Republican--whole departments that they, down deep, believe shouldn't have
been created in the first place. "It's very hard to change things in this
country: There are special interests," says Anthony Lewis of the New York
Times, who adds that it will be painful for Mr. Reagan to even cut back
the growth in the Federal budget.
Mr. Reagan will be the first President in history to spend $2 billion a
day! He speaks only of fractional budget cuts, and of cutting "waste and
fraud." It's not likely that a single major spending program will be
eliminated.
The former California governor was elected with the assistance of the so
called "Moral Majority," a growing movement of concerned church-going
Americans indignant over the government's sponsorship of morality-debasing
programs. But it is seriously doubtful whether the new administration
can really change the broad course of moral downslide the country is on.
Slow it down perhaps, or balance it off with such proposals as voluntary
prayers in public schools. (We're not likely to see any more Administra
tion-sponsored farces such as the "White House Conference on Families.")
The self-centered ''Me Generation" ethic is not likely to be replaced in
America's big metropolitan cultures. The United States, says historian
Walter Lacquer, is now enveloped in an "anarchic tide of egoism." It is
just like in the time of the judges in ancient Israel--"in those days
there was no king in Israel [and America has suffered from a lack of true
leadership]; every man did what was right in his own eyes" (Judges 21:25).
Strong leadership at the top can only do so much; the people themselves
must turn from their self-indulgent course. Adds Mr. Lacquer: "Even the
most talented leaders will be unable to save democracy for a society
whose supreme value is satisfaction of the ego."
One wonders too what impact the new Administration will have upon various
special-interest groups, including minorities, favored by the populist