January 21, 1981

President Reagan reiterated his campaign promises to take bold and immediate actions to remedy the nation's ''economic afflictions.'' The primary targets would be the excessive taxes and government, which he said were responsible for curbing industry, individual achievement and thrift, and which were hobbling the solution to the problem of ''the longest and one of the worst sustained inflations in our national history.'' The President also vowed to reduce Federal spending sharply and shift more government from Washington to the states. (Page A1.) Leading business and financial leaders generally applauded the tone of the Inaugural Address, although they noted the lack of a specific agenda and programs aimed at correcting the nation's economic problems. While the business community differed over the approach it would like the President to take, it was unanimous in advocating strong and quick actions. (D1.)

The staff of a Pennsylvania state regulatory agency proposed yesterday that the General Public Utilities Corporation receive only 18.5 percent of the rate increases it had requested as a result of the 1979 nuclear accident at its Three Mile Island power plant. The Pennsylvania Utility Commission's rate bureau recommended that G.P.U.'s Metropolitan Edison Company subsidiary, which owns 50 percent of the crippled plant near Harrisburg, Pa., be allowed a rate increase of $9.7 million, compared with a request for $76.5 million. The staff also recommended that the Pennsylvania Electric Company, another G.P.U. subsidiary and owner of 25 percent of the plant, be given a rate increase of $17 million, compared with a request for $67.4 million.

Saying his final farewells at Andrews Air Force Base yesterday, Jimmy Carter spotted Anita Schaefer, the wife of one of the hostages, and exuberantly embraced her. ''Tom is in the air,'' Mr. Carter said, speaking of her husband, Col. Thomas E. Schaefer of the Air Force, who was the senior military officer at the United States Embassy in Teheran. ''Really, truly, Mr. President,'' she whispered. ''Really, truly - at long last,'' he said, ''Tom is safe. I'll be with him tomorrow morning in Germany.'' ''Oh, thank God, Mr. President.'' Then they both cried. And they embraced again.

For a President who has promised Americans a new beginning, an era of national renewal at home and restored strength and stature abroad, the release of the American hostages in Iran was exquisitely timed. The extraordinary deadline diplomacy that put the 52 captured Americans into the air over Iran minutes after the howitzers thundered a new leader into office provided a graceful exit for Jimmy Carter, a hopeful prologue for Ronald Reagan and relief for a nation weary from 14 months of humiliation and seeming impotence. Almost unavoidably the human drama in Iran overshadowed an Inaugural Address that was less an inspirational call to national greatness than a plain-spoken charter of Mr. Reagan's conservative creed, less a sermon than a stump speech, less a rallying cry than a ringing denunciation of overgrown government and a practical pledge to get down to the business of trimming it at once. For all the new President's vaunted reputation as one of the nation's most polished political orators, his Inaugural Address offered surprisingly few rhetorical flourishes beyond the populist tribute to ordinary Americans that ''those who say that we are in a time when there are no heroes, they just don't know where to look.''

As J.W. McSwiney, chairman and chief executive of the Mead Corporation, sat in the stands on Inauguration Day and listened to President Reagan's address, he was impressed. ''Without trying to be definitive, he gave you a sense of quality that was not there before,'' Mr. McSwiney said yesterday, turning to a friend. ''He convinced you that this group of people can do something more positive.'' Like Mr. McSwiney, other top business and financial leaders generally applauded the grand themes the President had sounded of less government and a new economic beginning by a heroic people.