When Congress adjourned without acting to lring down staggering federal deficits, it followed a road paved with the good intentiors but quest.ionable actions of many pre. vious Congresses which have i allowed the national debt to more than quadniple in the past 20 years. : The lawmakers temporarily pulled thermelves out of the current fiscal crisis with last-minute emergency legis lation raising the deh oeilin from $1.3B9 trillion to :1.4% trlllion ‘Ihe $101 billion increase in borrowing authority will fill the Treasury’s needs dirough April or thereabouts. in the last 2’/: decades, Congress has raised the legal deh limit at least 35 times while balancing the budget only twice – in 1960 and 1$9! Acting Mardi 17, 1971, to discourage future borrowing and encourage fiscal responsibility, Congress decreed a “permanent” deh ceiling of $100 billion Since then, however, the lawmakers have raised the “ternporary” limit at least twice a year, yielding to insatiable demanth for spending and committing future Congresses to costly prograns, President Reagan gave the adjourning Congress a pat on the back for its accomplishments in many categories. while branding “failure to bring down federal delicits” as the single biggst disappdntment, Reagan pressured Congress to cut outlays, with mly modest success. Meantime, the President’s three-year 25 percent income tax cut obviously contributed to the enlargd deficits. He threatened to veto any major tax increase and this was used by some lawmakers as an excuse for not pursuing deficit-reduction measures. The cumulative record shows that Congress has not resoeded its own deh limits through the years. ‘lhe time is past due when the legislators should urgently focus on balancing the budget instead of taking the “easiuway out” of raising the rrowing limit. Just the interest on the national deh is forecast at around $140 billion in 1984. one of the serious consequences of over-spending, Before adjoianing, the Senate refused to consider an $8 tillion ddicit-reducing package of tax increases and budget cuts proposed by Sens. Pete V. Domenlci. RN.M. and Lawton Giiles, DFla. The action p-ompted D1menici to comment think it’s ldnd of oopiing out, myself.” Along a similar view Sen. Jake Garn, H-Utah. said more than two years ago that he favored eliminating “meaningless debt limits” and focusing more intiensel on balancing the In-dev-ax budgets. He called the present system ”a ruse to convince tax ayers Congress is concemecr about boding the line, even while it authorizes spending programs that force increases In the deh limit.” Gam was right: on the crucial need to ba ce the budget but debt limits should remain and be respected. The reluctance of the lawmakers to talc politicallypainful stqis this year toward balancing the budget doesn’t augia- well for such action in the election year of 19H. This could mean more annual delidts in the $200 billion range. Already the per capita share of the national ahh is approaching $,000, up all the way from S12 in iw). Taxpayers should take the opportunity to bend the esr of their senators and congressman abou this serious prohem while they are home hr the holidays.