COLUMN RIGHT : A Sorry Lot of Firm Hikes and Fuzzy Cuts : Working out a budget deal in private, Bush throws away his Reagan legacy.

In the budget deal just completed, conservatives lost badly. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Lomita) called it a a “cave-in” to the big spenders and he was right. “It couldn’t be worse,” said supply-sider Jude Wanniski, of Polyconomics Inc. Budget Director Richard G. Darman “has failed,” he added, and “should resign.” If enacted by Congress, the deal will predictably weaken the economy. We are moving closer to recession, and the foolish remedy (on either supply-side or Keynesian theory) is an unambiguous package of tax increases, accompanied by ambiguous spending cuts.

In the past, of course, such “cuts” have turned out to mean spending increases somewhat smaller than planned. No doubt the same will be true again. The package is said to include a five-year Pentagon cut of $170 billion. But buried in the fine print was the revealing comment that this “would be a victory of sorts for the Defense Department,” because it “would leave the military with more than Pentagon officials expected.” A nice cut if you can get it.

The $134-billion package of tax increases will predictably materialize on schedule, however: Gasoline taxes (at a time when gas prices are soaring), additional petroleum taxes, tobacco taxes, beer taxes, new Medicare taxes, stiff new taxes on luxury items. All this from a President who said two years ago: “No new taxes.” If that isn’t a cave-in, I don’t know what is.

In pursuing a deal in isolation, rather than taking his case to the American people, Bush showed that he has little confidence in the popularity or the justice of the positions he inherited from Ronald Reagan. A man of inherited property, Bush has all along been susceptible to the appeals to envy mounted by Democrats in recent months. Bush wanted a capital-gains tax, and he correctly urged that this was important for economic growth. But the Democrats replied that such a tax change would “help the rich.” To this, Bush meekly declined to respond. He respected the appeal that he should avoid “partisan politics” with something as important as the budget deficit.

He tried to work out something in private, away from the glare of politics and cameras. But he didn’t get in the end what he wanted at the beginning. In the process, he threw away the Reagan legacy. Notice that he is bound to compound the error. In disguising his own capitulation as a deal, Bush must now throw the real weight of his office behind this “fiscal Yalta,” as another congressman called it. Now at last he really will be taking his case to the American people, and what he will be taking will be this sorry package of tax increases, the avoidance of which was his most conspicuous campaign promise.

If Bush had really held out for what he said he believed in and then failed to get it, he could have gone public with a very different and far more persuasive message--in opposition to Washington. That might have been effective. It certainly would have been interesting. Now, however, he is stuck with the deal that he concedes is “not just the way you want” it.

At the last minute, he finessed the budget sequester many taxpayers were looking forward to: the furloughing of hundreds of thousands of bureaucrats. Darman’s apocalyptic strategy worked to the advantage of the bureaucrats.

All this will keep Washington happy. But is there any reason for conservatives to go on supporting the President? Conservatives (on the whole) supported Nixon 20 years ago because they thought he was the best they could get. Since then they have had a taste of Reagan, and they found out that the people loved him.

Perhaps, now, it’s time to say goodby to the whole top Republican leadership in Washington: Bush, Minority Leaders Bob Dole and Robert H. Michel, Darman. They’ve been around too long, cutting deals and ingratiating themselves with the media and becoming part of the Permanent Government. Bush seems to prize consensus above all else, as though he were running a wartime national-unity government.

Most Republican leaders now behave as though they think of the federal government as basically a Democratic show, but subject to the constraint that there be a “two-party system.” Republicans (they seem to feel) are permitted to play leading roles, and they will be treated with dignity and respect--just so long as they don’t try to write the script. Let’s remind them that the Constitution doesn’t say anything about two parties. In Ontario, Canadians fed up with indistinguishable centrist politicians recently voted for the outsider New Democratic Party. It’s time to send our politicians the same message. Let’s start voting for outsiders--for a change.