Ireagan Plans to Exceed Tory Cuts

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taly-here omes a ne ›mes a ne The world was bad enough with one Thatcher in office. Now it is even more unsafe-with two and a half.

Ronald Reagan is now in office with an administration staffed largely by warmongers -with a generous sprinkling of dim wits.

His advisors are critical of Thatcher not for the extent to which her policies have destroyed British industry (why should they worry about that?) but because she has not gone far enough!

They felt that she should have cut both taxes and public spending far more than she has done. And they intend to implecrisis Italy took a sharp lurch last week towards its next political crisis.

The constitutional court decided that six questions were eligible to be submitted to a national referendum.

And that presages a political crisis, partly because some of the referenda will be about the controversial anti-terrorist law and regulations governing military tribunals; but mostly because two of the referenda will be about a question generally considered in Italy to be political dynamite-the right to abortion.

Since 1978 Italy, a country where the Catholic Church still wields immense political power, has permitted abortions-though under conditions which are more restrictive that under the 1967 British law.

And even legal abortions are often extremely difficult and costly to obtain.

One referendum will be about whether this limited right should continue.

The Church and a considerable part of the Christian Democrațic party want it to be abrogated completely. ment exactly such policies in the ailing US economy.

Reagan is set to carry out his election promise of three successive annual cuts of 10% in income tax.

Missing And he will take steps to raise the missing billions of dollars by cuts designed to shunt the burden squarely onto the shoulders of the poor, the unemployed and the most downtrodden sections of American society.

Reagan's Treasury Secretary has been much more forthright on this policy than Britain's mealy-mouthed Tories. He has openly argued that the rich are The opposition Communisi Party and the lay parties of Forlani's coalition government (the Socialists and Republicans) defend the existing law.

The second referendum will be on the Radical Party's proposal to extend the right to abortion and remove the restrictions of the 1978 law.

Both questions are likely to shatter the political equilibrium of a country which is seldom far from major social upheaval.

Discontent

In conditions where mass unemployment and worsening inflation are intensifying social discontent, neither the parties of the governing coalition nor the Communists want to allow the class struggle to become more overt.

But the only constitutional way they have to avert the divisive referenda is to have a general election instead-the prospects of which the • politicians find just as dire.

So one way or the other Italy is now sliding down a slippery slope towards its next crisis-unless it meets another unforseen one on the.way. the ones most likely to put the extra money Reagan is giving them into savings or investment, rather than spending it on the daily necessities of life.

The cash is to come from American workers in several key areas--with cuts planned in the Medicaid programme, in disability insurance payments, social security payments, unemployment benefit, food stamps for the poor, child allowance and employment subsidies.

'Other cuts are likely to affect the space programme, synthetic fuels iesearch, urban development subsidies and the postal service.

The theory is that siphoning money from the poor and funnelling it into the pockets of the rich will create "real" jobs to replace the thousands that will be lost through such cuts.

But with US interest rates still near the 20% mark, the chances of many employers feeling the urge to borrow money to set up new factories and industries in the near future seem pretty slim. More likely they will take the money and run. And with inflation at 12%, the anger of US workers at the attacks on their living standards planned by Reagan can be expected to take a physical form in the shape of pay struggles and unrest in the areas of mass unemployment and urban deprivation.

Plainly the Reagan administration hopes to deflect some of this frustration into a new surge of nationalist fervour and imperialist aggression.

'The nauseating drum beating around the return of the US hostages from Iran has been followed by blood-curdling warnings: from Reagan and Secretary of State Haig against "terrorism", and underlining US preparations for a more aggressive foreign policy.

Vicious South Korean military dictator Chun Doo Hwan has been feted at the White House in a move that publicly abandons any pretence of concern for "human rights"; steps have been taken to boost the CIA, and increased US military spending seems likely to include development and deployment of the lethal neutron bomb in Western Europe.

Terror tactics

Rather like the Loyalist paramilitaries in the North of Ireland, Reagan's regime believes in using terror tactics to crush what they regard as "terrorism"

But since in their view anyone is a terrorist who fights to oppose their system of exploitation and oppression, this means that Reagan, like Thatcher is committed to terrorising us!

Reagan CND Labour Movement CONFERENCE AGAINST THE Saturday March 28, at UMIST Students Union, Manchester. Up to 2 delegates from labour movement bodies. • Details and credentials from;

CND, 11 Goodwin London N4.