A Larger Net Below the Tightrope

Congress and the White House are in a modest bidding war to see which will make the higher offer of help to Poland, free at last of Communist Party domination. That is all to the good, but the White House should show more enthusiasm for its role in the most spectacular political event in Europe since World War II.

President Bush announced last Thursday that he was adding $50 million in food aid for Poland to an earlier plan to send $50 million worth of beef, pork, butter, rice and other staples to help get Poland through the winter. The announcement came after pressure from some members of Congress, chief among them Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee. Leahy has his own food package for Poland that includes forgiving $2 billion in agricultural loans to Poland on the grounds that they will never be paid anyway, and opening what would amount to a Polish branch of the federal Agricultural Extension Service. Polish agriculture is in abysmal shape after years of the deadening effect of rigid price controls on food.

It is difficult to know what the right dollar amount of aid for Poland should be, but given the high stakes in Poland’s decision to push aside communism and give market economics some room to breathe, the right amount certainly would be closer to the Leahy figure than that of the White House. Some Administration officials worry that too much aid will lull the Poles into believing that the task of reviving their economy will be easy. But it is difficult to believe that an aid package that comes to around $3 per person is enough to stifle any incentive to work hard to overcome years of economic mismanagement that depleted resources and let the nation’s infrastructure crumble.

Washington did not lure Poland out onto the tightrope of freedom; that was Poland’s idea, its best hope of avoiding economic disaster. But after so long in virtual captivity, even the Poles who never lost hope that they might some day be free to run their own affairs are bound to be rusty. The chances of stumbling along the way will be with Poland for years. The least that Washington can do is make certain that it and other industrial nations of the West are in a position to cushion a fall.