The Economic Blues

AS they surveyed the state of the U.S. economy last week, Americans felt bewilderment, frustration and occasionally a touch of fatalism. Mike Lynn, a Detroit barber, put it bluntly: "I don't think about the economy. There's nothing any of us can do to change things." Occasionally the Administration seemed to take the same line --or argued that enough had already been done and that things would change gradually for the better. Only lately have Nixon and his economic advisers become somewhat more receptive to calls for stronger action (see BUSINESS). The latest figures last week showed that unemployment had risen once again and that inflation was continuing. With an assist from the Nixon Administration, a steel strike was averted at the last moment, but inevitably at an inflationary cost. Within 24 hours after the wage settlement was announced, most of the big steel producers posted a price hike. After 18 disruptive days, the nationwide rail strike was brought to an end. Though many featherbedding work rules were finally eliminated, the United Transportation Union extracted a 42% pay increase spread out over 42 months.

The President brought joy to Burbank, Calif., home of Lockheed Aircraft Corp., when the Senate by a vote of 49-48 approved an Administration-backed $250 million federal loan to the ailing company. That saved an estimated 60,000 jobs in the depressed aerospace industry. Before the week was out, lines formed again in Burbank restaurants; banks reported a brisk business in traveler's checks. But in another aerospace center. Seattle, the gloom only deepened when the Nixon Administration refused to distribute surplus food commodities in the city because it already had a food-stamp program in operation. While some of the needy in Seattle marched and picketed, others turned to Neighbors-in-Need, a volunteer organization that distributes free food. Unemployment has risen above 15%. In contrast to Burbank, there is no relief in sight.

Blaming the System. So far, in varied sections of the U.S., the state of the economy does not seem to pose a fatal political threat to Nixon--yet. For the present, some Republicans take comfort from the fact that many people see Nixon as having inherited the mess from the Democrats. After a tour of southern Illinois. Norton Kay, a former Chicago political editor, reported that the President is "seldom blamed or mentioned. People talk about government as an abstraction rather than about Nixon as a person. They seem disillusioned with the System rather than with a party or an individual." Republicans hope that people are distracted by other matters. "They want to talk about the ball scores and their fishing trips," observed Republican Senator William Saxbe about the mood of Ohio recently. "If there's a recession, you wouldn't know it." Such easy comfort is not usually echoed among White House advisers. Last week President Nixon, on his way to a weekend in Maine, stopped off in New Hampshire for a little political consciousness raising and cheerleading way ahead of that state's primary.

Part of the economic blues was expressed in cynicism. Gail Gabrielson, an Inglewood, Calif., car-rental agent who has been on waiting lists to become a teacher for three years, put it this way: "You bomb to death with the

Democrats, and you starve to death with the Republicans. We have a Republican President. So it's just what can be expected." Many people, however, expect the Republicans, with their perennial claim to fiscal integrity and management skill, to do better. That, after all, was one of the reasons so many businessmen voted for Nixon. The combination of accumulated savings and better profits in some industries could produce a boom, but confidence is lacking. Said Daniel Patrick, who lost his job as a Los Angeles computer programmer and is now selling cars: "People aren't buying because they don't know what is coming next. They have a feeling of loss of control over their own lives. I feel Nixon is as much out of control as we are."

Citizens' Revolt. If anything can arouse an apathetic electorate at present, it is a sense of deception added to economic malaise. The state of Connecticut is a case in point. With scant warning, the Democratic-controlled state legislature passed a personal income tax on the last frenzied night of the session. To top it off, Republican Governor Thomas Meskill, who opposed such a tax, allowed it to become law. The infuriated citizens of Connecticut staged a spontaneous revolt; they swamped both Governor and legislators with letters, telegrams and petitions demanding repeal of the tax. The state's politicians took alarm and last week convened a special session of the legislature to reconsider the tax.

The situation in Connecticut was special--but not the anger at politicians who seem to mislead the public. A milder form of that anger was directed here and there at the Administration for continuing to issue rosy proclamations about the economy. Republican James Scheurenbrand, a bank president in Evanston, Ill., plans to vote for Nixon again, but he recently objected that "glowing statements from Washington are at variance with what people are experiencing. There is too much hard sell. It's eroding the Administration's credibility. People are looking for real answers." Republican Senator William Roth of Delaware recently conducted a poll among his constituents and found that over half of the 20,000 who responded would accept wage and price controls. Said he: "I think people are ready for stern measures."

Psychopolitical Ploy. Many conservative Republicans who abhor controls would welcome decisive measures instead of soothing words. The best evidence suggests that Nixon and his advisers believe that their economic course is right and that things will eventually improve. But the suspicion that their public optimism is a psychopolitical ploy will not go away. Said Nancy Travis, a secretary in Santa Monica: "The Administration is so worried about being reelected, it's immobilized. They seem to be afraid of alienating anybody." The result could be alienating almost everybody.

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