
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 10, 1992                   TAG: 9203100386
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

IN ECONOMICS, VOODOO HAS LOST ITS APPEAL

THERE IS A tired but true joke that if all the economists in the world were laid end to end, they would never reach a conclusion. Thus, it is grimly amusing that both President George Bush and his predecessor Ronald Reagan majored in economics in college.

Bush won academic honors in this "discipline," but Reagan, by his own admission, was an indifferent student who concentrated on sports and parties.

Bush, the economist, was entirely correct in 1980 when he accused Reagan, the economist, of prescribing "voodoo economics" as a cure for the nation's ills. But since voodoo seemed to work for Reagan, Bush swallowed his pride and adopted the same eerie approach. Between them, Reagan and Bush gave the United States the most enormous deficits in history.

We can know the nation is in trouble when Pat Buchanan begins to make a weird sort of sense. Buchanan majored in journalism, even more foggy a field than economics. It has no hard and fast borders.

Most Americans (you and me) know that when times are tough, you try to pay down your debts and try not to take on any new obligations. The old car will go another year. That is precisely what is happening in the country today, but neither Congress, the White House nor the various presidential candidates seem to understand this. Well, Paul Tsongas seems to, but he hasn't a prayer of being nominated.

Individual Americans know how to tighten their belts when the times demand it. A little straight talk from our presidential candidates along this line would be welcome. Voodoo has lost its appeal. LOWRY BOWMAN ABINGDON

by CNB