What was going on when I was born?

Joseph M. Margiotta plans to have party rules amended tomorrow so that he can remain the Nassau County Republican chairman despite his conviction on extortion and mail fraud charges. Mr. Margiotta has called a meeting of the county's Republican executive committee for tomorrow afternoon, just hours after his scheduled sentencing in Federal Court in Uniondale, L.I. A spokesman for Mr. Margiotta, Robert McDonald, who is also a member of the 66-member executive committee, said the chairman ''would like to retain his post during the appeals process.'' ''There should be a total adjudication of the case,'' said Assemblyman Dean G. Skelos of Rockville Centre, who is close to Mr. Margiotta and also a committee member. ''If it means changing the rules to get justice, we will.''

A Supreme Court ruling today left political action committees and other ''independent'' political groups free to continue spending unlimited amounts in support of Presidential candidates, at least for the time being. Such groups spent $13.7 million in the 1980 campaign, almost all in behalf of Ronald Reagan. The Court split, 4 to 4, in a case that raised the question whether the free speech right of would-be donors was violated by the $1,000 limit on ''independent expenditures,'' set by Congress when it established public financing of Presidential campaigns.

The Consolidated Edison Company signed an agreement today for the purchase of electricity from a $180 million garbage recycling plant being built in Peekskill. The pact could be a factor in the replacement of 600,000 barrels of oil and produce savings for Westchester County taxpayers. Arthur Hauspurg, Con Edison's president and chief executive officer, said it was the company's ''first garbage-to-energy contract'' and indicated that it could serve as a prototype agreement for any solid waste plant built by New York City. The ''energy purchase agreement'' was signed with Michael D. Dingman, chairman and chief executive officer of Wheelabrator-Frye Inc. of Hampton, N.H., which is building the Peekskill facility. Mr. Dingman said his company had operated a similar facility in Saugus, Mass., since 1975 and was selling its power to a nearby General Electric plant manufacturing jet engines.

Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski appears to be firmly in control of th e military council, the Government and the demoralized Communist Par ty, Western diplomats and knowledgeable Poles believe. Although his style is less than dictatorial and he has not fashioned the image of an activist leader in the public consciousness, the 58-year-old general has achieved a position of power unparalleled in postwar Poland. The only comparable figure over the last 36 years is Wladyslaw Gomulka, the party leader who rose to power as a reformer in 1956 and who was dismissed, an embittered conservative, after workers' riots in 1970. Mr. Gomulka, who is now terminally ill, was praised as ''a great son of the Polish nation, an ardent internationalist and a Communist'' in an editorial today in Trybuna Ludu, the main Communist Party newspaper. The occasion was the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Polish Workers' Party, the predecessor of today's Polish United Workers' (Communist) Party.

Governor Carey proposed a new state budget today that includes more than $200 million in increased state fees, a rise in taxes on gasoline and alcohol and major cuts in a variety of state programs. But the Governor also urged increased spending for prisons, roads and bridges and for new programs to com- Excerpts from message, page B6. bat youth unemployment and to help communities pay for health and welfare programs. State officials said that while the proposed budget would not raise income taxes or general sales taxes, the array of tax and licensing increases would amount to more than $400 million. These changes would raise the cost of registering a car, renting a room in state university dormitories or getting a license to hunt, fish or practice a profession.

Thomas Howard Kean, the 46-year-old Republican who won New Jersey's closest race for governor, took the oath of office today, promising to lead a bipartisan effort to solve state problems with sharply reduced resources. Mr. Kean, the state's 48th chief executive, is the first governor in recent history to begin an administration with both houses of the Legislature controlled by the opposition party. He said he expected ''clashes of ideas and ideology,'' but added, ''Those clashes will produce the sparks which will forge the programs and policies to govern this state.'' In his inaugural address - delivered on the stage of the War Memorial Building near the State Capitol, with members of the State Legislature, the Cabinet and the judiciary seated behind him - Mr. Kean said, ''If the future is not bright for our state, then it is indeed dim for the United States; and so I say that the only thing New Jersey has to fear is the economic failure of the nation itself.''

A little-understood accounting rule, once mostly an annoyance, is today masking millions of dollars in future profits at prospering motion picture companies. And it is these earnings, mostly the result of lucrative contracts with commercial and pay television, that have been part of the lure of Hollywood for Marvin Davis, the Denver oilman, and now the Coca-Cola Company and its chairman, Roberto C. Goizueta. ''We have more than $155 million of these contracts, which is largely profit, yet it is nowhere in our balance sheet or our income statements,'' said Francis T. Vincent Jr., president and chief executive of Columbia Pictures Inc., which has agreed in principle to be acquired by Coca-Cola for about $760 million. What prevents Mr. Vincent and other movie executives from using such earnings to bolster their current bottom line is an accounting rule first adopted in 1973 by the Accounting Practices Board. The rule requires Columbia Pictures stock surged after the Coca-Cola takeover was announced; the studio is noted for combining sound business practices and creativity. Page D4. Coke's move was seen by many analysts as a mistake. Market Place. Page D8.

President Reagan, declaring that conditions in Poland had continued to worsen as a result of the imposition of martial law, warned today that ''we're not going to wait forever for improvement in the situation there'' before taking additional measures against the Soviet Union and the Polish military Government. In his news conference, Mr. Reagan asserted that the sanctions announced last month ''have had an effect, although there's no question that the situation in Poland is deteriorating.'' The Polish authorities have in the last 10 days taken some steps toward restoring normality, lifting censorship on foreign journalists, restoring local phone service and permitting internal travel. Mr. Reagan said, however, that while those were presented as ''moderating,'' there was not any real change. ''The people are still imprisoned,'' he said. ''There is no communication with Solidarity or between the military Government and the people, and the military law is still in effect.''

An article in Metropolitan Report on Jan. 12 incorrectly reported Lewis E. Lehrman's former position with the Rite Aid Corporation. Mr. Lehrman, a candidate for the Republican nomination for Governor, resigned on Jan. 5 as chairman of the executive committee of Rite Aid and from its board.

International President Reagan warned Moscow and Warsaw that his Administration would not ''wait forever for improvement in the situation'' before taking additional measures in reaction to the ''deteriorating'' conditions in Poland. (Page A1, Column 3.) Curbs on sales to the Soviet bloc were discussed by the NATO allies and Japan in Paris. The allies maintain a list of sensitive items that members are pledged not to export to Communist countries and updates it every three years. Officials say the Reagan Administration is seeking major new restrictions this year. (A8:1-4.)

Like children at a party they don't want to attend, a small group of men and one woman has been meeting about once a month since last September at the Treasury Department. Seated around a huge table in its high-ceilinged, marble-walled Cash Room, the appointed few have been debating the role of gold in the American monetary system. It is already clear, however, that almost nobody on the Gold Commission wants a return to any kind of gold standard. Consequently no substantial changes are expected to emerge in its report. However, the report may recommend that the Treasury mint gold coins, an idea that is popular on the 17-member commission. Less popular among the members, apparently, is the idea of attending meetings. During most of its existence so far, the commission has barely managed to have a quorum. The only members who attend regularly are Representative Ronald E. Paul, a Texas Democrat who is the group's most devout goldbug, and the three governors from the Federal Reserve Board, which is anxious that the commission might recommend some automatic limit on the growth of the money supply, thereby putting the Fed on a leash.

Justice Andrew R. Tyler heard arguments yesterday from both sides in a suit by the Manhattan District Attorney to block Chief Judge Lawrence H. Cooke from instituting a new system for awarding 97 temporary judgeships in State Supreme Court in New York City. The District Attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, appeared at the hearing in State Supreme Court in Manhattan. Justice Tyler, who presided over the hourlong hearing, said he would rule in the case before the week is out on whether to issue an injunction to prevent Judge Cooke from putting the plan into effect Monday as scheduled. Mr. Morgenthau, who filed a lawsuit against Judge Cooke last week, has said that the Chief Judge does not have the authority to devise new rules governing how the judges will be selected without first consulting the administrative board of the state's unified court system and obtaining the approval of the Court of Appeals.