What was going on when I was born?

When the House and Senate open the 99th session of Congress Thursday, legislative leaders say the biggest issue they will face is the Federal budget deficit - the same big issue they have faced each of the last four years. Once again the same question will be asked: Can the deficit, which Congress and the Administration have sought to cut each year since 1981, be reduced? Since 1981, when the deficit was $57.9 billion, the red ink total has steadily grown, reaching a record $195.4 billion in 1983 and threatening to top $200 billion in 1985. House and Senate leaders in both parties have said that reductions in the deficit are their top legislative priority and that they are willing to work with President Reagan. Sharp Clashes Seen as Likely This cooperative tone is important, particularly because leaders say any deficit-reduction package must be approved quickly. But it is still likely there will be sharp clashes with the White House, first over the military budget, and possibly over the specifics of any domestic spending cuts.

Almost everyone in this town of 2,100 people knows E. W. Dixon as a first-rate farmer. Most would describe John Killgore in the same way. But after his experiences of the last few years, Mr. Dixon is not so sure, despite the 3,500 sleek hogs he fattens on the farm he has expanded to 720 acres. ''This situation,'' he said, looking out over his frozen fields the other day, ''sort of shakes your confidence.'' What few here realize is that Mr. Dixon has spent many sleepless hours thinking about the farm debts that piled up while his land values were slipping away, or that Mr. Killgore has begun to wonder whether his independence is worth the work and worry of years like the last three, when he spent $30,000 more than he received for the grain and livestock he produced.

The new year will bring a host of Federal tax changes that will simultaneously produce a reduction in personal income taxes, an increase in Social Security taxes and extra record- keeping headaches for millions of taxpayers. The most prominent change will be the automatic adjustment, or ''indexation,'' of the income tax for inflation. The historic change, resulting from the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, means that Americans will no longer be forced to pay taxes on increases in income that have merely kept pace with the cost of living. The inflation adjustment of 4.08 percent will mean a reduction in income taxes for those whose income gains fall short of the inflation rate. Others would still end up paying less than they would have in the absence of indexation.

President Reagan will meet with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone in Los Angeles on Wednesday but it is unlikely that he will make specific demands for Japan to narrow its trade deficit with the United States, according to Administration officials. Despite the growing concern of American officials over the trade imbalance, the aides predicted a low-key meeting that would emphasize the friendship and cooperation between the two allies. However, the talks could lead to meetings of Cabinet officials of both countries who would sit down together in coming months to consider specific actions to reduce the deficit, both American and Japanese officials said. Dollar's Strength Cited Many analysts here and in Tokyo believe that so long as the dollar remains high-priced relative to the yen - making American products less competitive than Japanese goods - only limited progress is possible in cutting the deficit. The trade deficit with Japan is projected at more than $30 billion this year and $40 billion in 1985.

In what appeared to be the most important shake- up in China's General Staff in years, 40 officers at corps level or above - equivalent to at least three-star generals in the United States - have responded to insistent prodding and have retired. The retirements were made public Saturday. They appear to mark a major step forward for the Government in its drive to rid the aging officer corps of veterans who have resisted the campaign of Deng Xiaoping, China's paramount leader, to get the four-million member armed forces out of politics and into a more modern approach to warfare. For more than five years Mr. Deng has been maneuvering to rid the military of holdovers from the Mao Zedong era who typically favor baggy uniforms, plastic sandals and concepts of soldiering rooted in the guerrilla campaigns conducted by the Communists 40 years ago.

Nine years ago, Jonas Savimbi made this city the capital of his short-lived Democratic Republic of Angola. Today he is trying to strangle it. Huambo is the center of Angola's almost hidden civil war, a conflict that has left countless dead, 20,000 amputees and aggravated malnourishment problems for one-third of the people of the once-fertile central highlands. Mr. Savimbi leads the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, a pro-Western group known as Unita that is supplied by South Africa and is based in Jamba, 500 miles southeast of here. Opposing him is Angola's Marxist Government, which is supplied by the Soviet Union and is based in the capital, Luanda, 300 miles northwest of here. Driven Into the Bush Caught in between is Huambo, once the capital of Mr. Savimbi's Angola. His republic lasted two months, until January 1976, when the leftist forces, backed by Cuban troops, drove Unita guerrillas into the bush.

Compliance with New York's seat belt law, the subject of long legislative debates over public safety and personal choice, becomes mandatory at midnight tonight, making New York the first state in the country with fines for drivers and front-seat passengers who fail to buckle their seat belts. Transportation and safety officials said that during a one-month grace period that began when the law took effect on Dec. 1, warnings but no fines were issued and seat-belt use rose in the state from 25 percent to 50 percent. The officials expressed hope that increased compliance with the law would save hundreds of lives and prevent thousands of injuries a year. Another major change that New Yorkers face beginning at midnight tonight is compulsory use of the 718 area code for calls to Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island. Residents of Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island will have to dial 1 and the 212 area code to call Manhattan or the Bronx. Telephone rates will not be affected by the change.

First, young men started nailing up posters proclaiming Black Mother's Day. Then a black Father Christmas appeared. When Antonio dos Santos and some 3,000 followers insisted on wearing African robes in the carnival parade, there were quiet visits from the police. These events were hardly unlawful, but newspapers in this predominantly black city in northeastern Brazil denounced the group as ''firebrands'' and ''racists.'' Organizing along color lines has long been seen as close to subversion in Brazil, which officially considers itself a ''racial democracy''.

The Reagan Administration plans to issue a report contending that Poland has broadened its suppression of individual rights since the 1981 declaration of martial law, a senior State Department official said today. The Administration's analysis of the human rights situation is contained in the department's year-end report to Congress on the world's human rights situation. The Administration findings parallel those in a report that was made public today by the Lawyers Committee for International Human Rights, the State Department official said. According to the group's report, ''Poland - Three Years After,'' martial law enabled the Government of Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski to broaden permanently the power of the Polish Army and the military police. The Government has also continued to limit Poles' rights to organize trade unions and to speak freely by legalizing arrest and detention without trial, the report said.

Guerrillas eluded tight security to bombard Kabul, the Afghan capital, with rockets on at least five successive nights last week, Western diplomats here said today. Despite a steady security buildup in the weeks preceding the Dec. 27 anniversary of the Soviet entry into the Afghan struggle, Moslem rebels began hitting Soviet and Afghan military installations with 107-millimeter rockets on Monday, the diplomats told journalists in Pakistan.

A leading American archbishop said today that the Roman Catholic Church in Nicaragua faced ''significant pressure'' from the Sandinista Government.

The director general of Unesco, Amadou Mahtar M'Bow of Senegal, has strongly criticized Jean Gerard, the departing American representative to the agency, calling her ignorant and ''a politician.'' Mr. M'Bow, dismissing Mrs. Gerard as ''that woman,'' said she had ''no idea how Unesco works.'' Mrs. Gerard today rejected Mr. M'Bow's remarks, saying it was ''unacceptable for an international civil servant to make public political attacks on a member country of the United Nations system and on that country's representative.'' The comments by Mr. M'Bow, head of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, came during an interview on French television Saturday night.