"Let's Get Started"

By William R. Doerner

Pundits and political phrasemakers have used the term Reagan Revolution for years as shorthand for the policy goals set early in the Administration. Last week, without significantly changing his objectives, Reagan decided to rename the cause. In his annual State of the Union address to Congress and the nation, in which he clearly hoped to set the agenda for his final term in elective office, Reagan hailed the dawning of a "second American Revolution of hope and opportunity." In rhetoric that was almost flamboyantly rhapsodic, the President described his vision as "a revolution carrying us to new heights of progress by pushing back frontiers of knowledge and space; a revolution of spirit that taps the soul of America, enabling us to summon greater strength than we've known."

Reagan's State of the Union message was in many ways a restatement of his second Inaugural Address, only delivered with more polish. The President in effect used the prime-time opportunity to give the hard sell to his major programs: tax reform without revenue increases, a continuation of the military buildup in tandem with arms-control talks and a determination to proceed with the controversial Star Wars antimissile defense. If there was any moderately fresh emphasis, it was on reaching out to minorities and the poor, albeit on the terms that the President has always advocated: that economic growth is the key to leaving no one behind. Said Reagan: "There must be no forgotten Americans."

The State of the Union address came during a week of extraordinary economic and political activity in Washington. On Monday the President sent to Congress his budget proposal for the fiscal year beginning next Oct. 1, and it was anything but cheery. In an effort to curb the deficit monster, Reagan asked for a total spending increase of just 1.5%, the lowest such rise in 21 years, which would force severe cutbacks or the outright cancellation of many domestic programs. The proposed slashes in spending sent out shock waves to states and cities across the nation, as Governors and mayors calculated the drastic effects on their budgets. Many members of Congress, including some Republicans, voiced indignation that the otherwise austere budget calls for a 13% increase in defense spending and vowed to force the Pentagon to share the fiscal burden.

The first concentrated uproar over budget-based sacrifices was not long in arriving. In testimony before a Senate committee, Budget Director David Stockman decried the rapid growth in agricultural subsidies, which would be severely reduced under Reagan's spending proposal, and military retirement costs, which would not. Spokesmen for the two constituencies expressed outrage at being singled out as budget busters, and Stockman's dismissal was demanded.

Within the House chamber, site of the State of the Union speech, the President's arrival was preceded immediately by that of the Cabinet, led by Secretary of State George Shultz, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and Treasury Secretary James Baker. Ironically, Stockman drew a seat just in front of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who seemed amused at the coincidence, as did Stockman's seatmate, White House Counsellor Edwin Meese. Somewhat surprisingly, Reagan barely mentioned the budget in his address, and he said nothing at all about the sacrifices that it would surely seek from nearly everyone. On the contrary, he dwelt at length on what he regards as an almost boundless future for the U.S.: "There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect."

In specific terms, the President swept away any remaining doubts that he would press for a tax-simplification plan this year along the lines of the program drafted by former Treasury Secretary Donald Regan, now White House chief of staff. While still withholding a total endorsement of the Regan proposal, which has won wide support but also vehement opposition from some lobbying and special-interest groups, Reagan came closer than ever before to giving it his stamp of approval. The scheme, he said, is "an excellent reform plan whose principles will guide the final proposal we will ask you to enact." With the President's encouragement, Baker will now begin serious negotiations on Capitol Hill, looking for tax-reform consensus among Democrats as well as Republicans.

In other economic matters, Reagan called for a new round of negotiations + between the U.S. and its trading partners within a year in an effort to combat growing protectionism. For the fourth straight year the President called for the creation of "enterprise zones," pockets of high unemployment where businesses would receive tax benefits for creating jobs. The State of the Union speech coincided with Reagan's 74th birthday, and the President took note of the event by turning to House Speaker Thomas O'Neill, seated behind him, and saying, "Tip, you could make that a birthday present."

Continued resolve was the familiar byword in military affairs. "Our determination to maintain a strong defense has influenced the Soviet Union to return to the bargaining table," said Reagan, referring to the new round of arms negotiations scheduled to begin next month in Geneva. He termed the two- year-old Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), better known as Star Wars, "the most hopeful possibility of the nuclear age," because it would provide a nonnuclear defense against ballistic missiles. As for the argument of SDI detractors that the technology envisioned for such a system would take decades to develop, Reagan stated impatiently, "The answer to that is: let's get started." It was a line that he had added by felt-tipped pen to a late draft of the speech.

Judged by the customary State of the Union standard, Reagan gave relatively short shrift to foreign policy. His most interesting assertion was to link U.S. support of anti-Soviet guerrillas in Afghanistan and the anti-Sandinista contras in Nicaragua with the right of any nation to protect itself from foreign aggression. "Support for freedom fighters is self-defense," he said, and "totally consistent" with the charters of the Organization of American States and the United Nations. The President seemed to be building a legal case for Washington's continued use of covert--and maybe even overt--aid in conflicts that it deems the result of Soviet mischief-making.

In what has become a trademark feature of his State of the Union speeches, the President illustrated one of his main points with living, on-the-premises examples. Near the end of his address, as proof that "anything is possible in America," Reagan introduced two special guests seated with wife Nancy in the visitors' gallery: Jean Nguyen, 21, a cadet at West Point whose family fled Viet Nam as refugees in 1974, and "Mother" Clara Hale, 79, a Harlem social worker who specializes in the care of heroin-addicted infants born of drug- abusing mothers. The President had scouted both of these "American heroes" himself: he read about Hale in a magazine and noticed Nguyen in a brief TV appearance.

Members of Congress interrupted the speech 28 times with applause that was noticeably louder on the Republican than the Democratic side of the aisle. When it was over, the President was called back to the podium to receive an outsize birthday card and a rousing round of Happy Birthday to You. Though Reagan got generally high marks for his effective delivery, many critics took him to task for the speech's content. Lamented Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole, a Republican: "I wish he had spent more time on the deficit." Of course, Dole conceded, "when you have something that you're not proud of, you don't raise it as the centerpiece of your speech." Democratic House Speaker O'Neill jabbed harder still. With such an upbeat tone, Reagan was "not being honest with the American public," he said. The speech, added the 72-year-old O'Neill, counted for little more than the musings of "a kindly old man."

The official Democratic assessment of the state of the union, a 30-minute prerecorded TV film, was an oddly pallid presentation. Based on the discussions of four informal "focus groups," each made up of two elected officials and a dozen or so members of the public, the program was partly an exercise in self-criticism and partly a pep talk. Democratic officials defended the approach as an effective way of proving to voters that the party is engaged in a reappraisal of its appeal from the grass roots up. Said Mark Johnson, an official of the party's House Congressional Campaign Committee, which produced the $100,000 film: "I think we should be applauded for recognizing some of the labels the Republicans threw at us and doing something about them."

No one is better at toasting the good times than Ronald Reagan, and few other Presidents have invested quite so much political capital in doing so. If Reagan really intends to lead the nation into a second American revolution of hope and opportunity, he will have to join the budget debate and other battles that were bursting around him last week. The President had earned his right to a birthday evening of soaring spirits and celebratory prose. But birthdays come only once a year.

With reporting by Laurence I. Barrett/Washington