AT A WASHINGTON STRATEGY SESSION for conservatives last week, Paul Weyri ch was pounding the table about the disasters attendant upon the Republic shoul d a lobbying reform defr to right-wing hearts fail in Congress. The next day, L amar Alexander came to the Cato Inst itute to declare that the Republican revolution had run aground. Across the nation, conservative activists feared lest Ronald Reagan’s national security adviser run for president.
All these hands were being wrung the week that the Senate passed welfare reform by a vote of 87 to 12. In the House of Representatives, Republicans were off to a good start in what looked to be thtoughest fight of the revolution — Medicare reform. The effort to pare Medicare reverses the 30- year momentum of Great Society entitlement programs, just as the welfare bill undoes a 60-year-old framework for poverty programs. Surely if there was a week to step back find count some blessings, this was it.
