From Congress to Columnist : Danger of Debt Is Theme for Proxmire

WASHINGTON — The subway platform is crowded, and former Sen. William Proxmire is striding so rapidly through the cavernous station that he could almost be said to be running.

Flashing lights and a far-away rumble signal a train’s approach.

Proxmire is out of position. He shifts from the fast walk to a dash, and darts into a car just before the automated doors close with a whoosh .

It is not an isolated event. It is a routine.

“I pace up and down carrying a heavy briefcase,” the 73-year-old Wisconsin Democrat said. “I do a sprint right at the very end.”

Proxmire was once the country’s most celebrated long-distance amateur runner.

For decades, he ran flat out (“I never jogged”) the five miles between his home in northwest Washington and his Senate office on Capitol Hill.

“I can’t do that anymore,” he said. “I’ve got a bum knee.”

So, for exercise, he pedals a stationary bike and strides the length of subway platforms.

“One great heart specialist said the secret is that you’ve got to keep moving, got to keep moving,” he said.

On this particular day, as on most days, Proxmire is headed for a tiny cubicle of the Robert M. LaFollette Sr. Congressional Reading Room in the Library of Congress.

The name has special significance to him. He held the LaFollette seat in the Senate for 31 years after being elected to replace Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy following McCarthy’s death in 1957.

The cubicle has a chair, bookshelves, a telephone and typewriter. It is not equipped with a view. A computer terminal is expected to be installed soon.

It is not much work space for a man who, until last December, had a suite in the Dirksen Senate Office Building and a staff of dozens.

“When you’re in the Congress, you really get support,” Proxmire said. “I loved the Senate, but I don’t very much miss it.

“What I do miss is the clerical staff, the secretarial support, the schedulers, the researchers.”

In retirement, Proxmire is pretty much of a one-man band. He does his own typing.

And he is gingerly returning to what he calls “my first love, journalism.”

In 1949, he was a reporter on the Capitol Times in Madison, Wis. He was fired after several run-ins with the management.

Now he’s back.

Proxmire is writing a twice-weekly newspaper column for United Features Syndicate, and one of the 40 or 50 papers to subscribe so far is his alma mater, the Capitol Times.

Proxmire launched his column last month at a National Press Club news conference, in which he resurrected his Golden Fleece Award, perhaps the most successful political public-relations device of its time. The Golden Fleece will be a monthly feature of the column.

Each month for 165 consecutive months, beginning in March, 1975, Proxmire cited what he considered an example of conspicuous government waste, occasionally also recognizing a positive action that saved money or spent it well.

“Just because I’m out of the Senate doesn’t mean we have to abandon a device that does something to cut down spending in this time of fearful budget deficits,” Proxmire said.

He also is planning a book about debt--government debt, business debt, household debt.

Proxmire, former chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, has been predicting a major recession for years: “When the recession comes, it’s likely to be a real killer, a depression--and that is because our debt is so enormous.”

He has been working up to the book by speaking on the subject of debt around the country.