Washington By CHARLES J. ABBOTT

Durbin and Hyde on 'fairness' issue

ROBERT Hayes, seated in a large basement room of a shabby emergency housing shelter, recounted the misery of homeless and hungry Americans. The shelter was housed in a dilapidated federal building. Many of its windows were boarded over, and there were wide cracks in its exterior stucco walls. "Isn't it time for Congress to consider a national right to shelter?" asked Hayes. "Let the administration tell you how much homelessness costs, in dollars, in human lives and in a degraded sense of our own humanity. Is a little mercy too much to ask for?''

While Hayes spoke, dozens of people finished a lunch from a soup line. One man was eating bean soup, a thin sandwich and potato chips. A half-dozen people napped on the worn carpeting on the floor.

Hayes, counsel to the Coalition for the Homeless, was speaking to a House banking subcommittee. At the same hearing, an administration official described steps to funnel foodstocks and to open federal buildings to groups operating shelters. By coincidence or planning, the day-long hearing six blocks from the Capitol was the same day as President Reagan's upbeat State of the Union speech.

The hearing illustrated the "fairness" issue that is repeatedly raised against the Reagan administration. It is a matter of dispute. The press secretary for a Republican congressman, for instance, thanked a reporter for calling it "the alleged fairness issue." President Reagan, shortly after announcing he is running for reelection, said of the fairness issue, "I don't think anything could be farther from the truth . . . that we rigged our programs and our tax breaks . . . for the rich and for business. These are absolute falsehoods."

Rep. Richard Durbin (D-20, Springfield, Ill.), who is chairman of the House Democratic New Members Caucus this session, says fairness — how equitably the administration treats people — will be a difficult issue for Reagan in Illinois. If complaints of paltry federal aid to the poor are one part of the fairness question, Durbin has an anecdote to illustrate the other end. "People realize that the tax-cut package did not help them. I ask people at town meetings [in my district] how many of them took a vacation or bought a car with the savings. They laugh," Durbin said. Durbin lumped federal aid to education into the fairness question, along with overspending on military parts and cuts in social programs. The president's list of lower interest rates, unemployment rates and inflation rates may attract some voters, he said, but others have been brushed by the recession. "More people who thought they were economically secure feel threatened," Durbin said. "That message is going down and it's going down slowly."

Rep. Henry Hyde (R-6, Bensenville, Ill.), co-chairman of Reagan's reelection campaign in Illinois, argues that Democrats are exaggerating. An articulate spokesman for conservatives, Hyde said the question of assistance has been focused too narrowly on the government. "The Reagan administration is attempting to broaden the recognition of responsibilities to include other segments of society as well. I don't think anybody denies the problems are there or [that we should] help as much as possible," Hyde said. Issues like hunger and homelessness are more easily pictured, Hyde said, while lower inflation is a cerebral topic but also should be part of the fairness debate. He said, "As the value of the dollar increases, the poor ... are benefitted."

As an aside, Hyde said the issue has a prejudicial name. In America, to accuse people of being unfair is like saying they are indecent, he said. "Frankly, I think the issue is overblown. Most people lead lives where they encounter the rest of society. They listen to Democrats complain how terrible things are and they know it's not true," Hyde said. "People know they [the economic statistics used by Reagan] are true. They know times are better."

Asked how he would counter the fairness issue if he were running Reagan's campaign, Hyde said he would question the credibility of the opposition. "People are smarter than the Democrats give them credit for. That doesn't mean you can't campaign against their government by T-shirt . . . junk," he said.

A Washington group, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, says 40 percent of the cuts proposed in domestic programs would be made in programs targeted at low-income people. It said the levels are below what the president's hand-picked Task Force on Hunger suggested. The task force proposed spending more on Food Stamps and maintaining the current level on the nutrition program.

Reagan has said the federal government is spending more than ever on food for the hungry, aid to the needy and for health care. Skeptics say the spending levels would be higher if it were not for administration cuts and that the administration has little to do with the automatic increases in benefits for health care and Social Security.

April 1984/Illinois Issues/47