‘Good Times Will Keep Rolling,’ President Says

President Reagan, jabbing the Iran- contra hearings as “sideshows and hoopla” in his weekly radio address Saturday, said that the spotlight should be on the economy and: “As things look today, the good times will keep rolling as far as the eye can see.”

In the Democratic response, however, Arkansas Sen. Dale Bumpers said that congressional phones were silent when Reagan appealed to Americans this month to call lawmakers and urge that they side with the President on the budget.

The phone silence, Bumpers said, shows that Americans are siding with Congress in the budget battle and want “action, not rhetoric.”

“With all the sideshows and hoopla in Washington these days, you may sometimes wonder if anyone’s paying attention to what really matters,” Reagan said from his retreat at Camp David, Md. “Keeping inflation, unemployment and your taxes down and growth up and getting control of our federal deficit so the economy will stay healthy--these are among Washington’s most important jobs.

” . . . The good news is that our economy is strong and getting stronger. . . .

“Balancing the budget by reducing government spending is the one piece left to put into place, if we’re to keep prosperity going strong in the years to come.”

Bumpers pointed out that the President’s proposed budget was unpopular even with members of his own party and won only 18 votes in the Senate.

“Yet neither the President nor the Republicans have offered an alternative,” Bumpers said. “They have complained and ridiculed and referred to Democrats as taxers and spenders; they have yet to confess that borrowing and spending, which they insist on, are much bigger sins and indeed are the reasons for our massive debt.”

Bumpers criticized the Administration for more than doubling the national debt, saying: “The American people know Mr. Reagan’s deficit has jeopardized our future in an unprecedented way.”