![]() This year the deficit will amount to only 2.3 percent of GNP. The family with a $20,000 income and a $100,000 mortgage is in trouble the family with the same mortgage and an income of $100,000 is relatively secure. A homely analogy may be found in personal debt. What matters is the deficit as a percent of our gross national product. The size of the deficit, whether quoted in current dollars or constant dollars, is not the figure that matters. Continued large deficits are a problem, but they are not a desperate problem. The same thing is true of the obligation to rebuild bridges and to fight the war against drugs and crime. The bailout of savings and loan depositors can be paid for over the next 30 to 40 years. To be sure, if some overwhelming situation should develop, the trusting voters would forgive him a retreat. His steadfast opposition to a tax increase was the most important element in his successful run for the White House. ![]() ''Read my lips! No new taxes!'' This was a pledge of honor, and Bush is an honorable man. If Bush made one position clear during his campaign, it was his position on taxes. Political considerations clearly support a policy of firmness. We are now on what some economists call a ''glide path,'' as the rate of increase in revenues approaches the rate of increase in spending. President, stand like Horatius! Hold firm to your convictions! Don't yield now! If a tax increase can be averted for the next three years, and if Congress will restrain its impulse to spend the dividends of peace, natural growth in the economy will bring the budget close to balance. The story turned out happily: ''With weeping and with laughter, still is the story told, how well Horatius kept the bridge in the brave days of old.'' And how can man die better than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers and the temples of his Gods?'' ''Then out spake brave Horatius, the captain of the Gate: To every man upon this earth death cometh soon or late. Without a substantial increase in taxes, the president was told, deficits would soar, interest rates would climb and disaster would be close at hand. The president seemed to be retreating from his promise to approve ''no new taxes.'' Pressures upon him were mounting from every quarter. ![]() Actually the lad, now old and gray, was thinking of George Bush. The boy fell to thinking of Horatius the other day. It fell to one little boy to declaim, with appropriate gestures, the ballad of Horatius from Macaulay's ''Lays of Ancient Rome.'' Sixty years ago, when little boys took lessons in elocution, the custom was to memorize great chunks of heroic poetry.
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