The Washington Post	.	Tuesday,	October	27,	1987	A19
Optimism is hardly the order of the day in Washington. But even if you think that a cold-shower dose of reality is what the politicians in tliis town really needed, the situation is more hopeful than most of the commentary here would suggest.</br></br>By dramatically signaling the end of the ÛÏmorning in AmericaÛ euphoria of the middle Reagan years, the stock market may have done the country and the world a huge favor. The reaction on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue suggests that the message has been heeded, perhaps in time to head off the economic collapse that such a crash in equity values has historically signaled.</br></br>Many signs suggest that there is a good deal of strength and resiliency in the economy. The latest figures on the gross national product and consumer prices suggest that we are still enjoying healthy growth without inflation. If the politicians here and abroad can take the well-recognized steps necessary to adjust their fiscal, monetary and trade policies, the prospect is far from bleak.</br></br>For the United States, the overdue imperative is disciplining the federal budget deficit. And that requires that Congress and the president abandon the myth that they can sit on their prerogatives and force someone else to make the hard decisions.</br></br>President Reagan has climbed off his high horse about taxes and agreed that revenues can and must be part of the bargaining. For their part, the majority Democrats and minority Republicans on Capitol Hill have tacitly conceded that the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings ÛÏautomatic sequesterÛ is a poor substitute for the tough political choices that must be made to get control of federal spending.