June 30, 1982

First of several articles appearing this week on the second phase of President Reagan's tax cut. By KAREN W. ARENSON When President Reagan signed a new tax program into law last Aug. 13, it was heralded as a solution that would quickly revitalize the American economy and set the country on a new path to growth and prosperity. ''Our tax proposal will, if enacted, have an immediate impact on the economic vitality of the nation,'' the President declared in his first Budget Message in March 1981. Things have not worked out that way, however. The second stage of Mr. Reagan's three-year tax cut takes effect tomorrow, and it comes at a time of near-record unemployment, falling corporate profits and general economic disarray. The school of thought that inspired the tax cuts - supply-side economics, which stresses slashing taxes to bolster productivity and investment - is in dispute more than ever.

An article in Business Day on Tues- day incorrectly described the Polar- oid Corporation's reduction of its workforce earlier this year. The severance program was voluntary.

World oil prices have been consistently soft over the last month, despite Israel's invasion of Lebanon, Iran's successes in its war against Iraq and the death of King Khalid of Saudi Arabia - all factors that might have sent prices soaring a few years ago, when oil was perceived as less plentiful. ''There is a lot of new confidence among buyers that oil is available whenever it's needed,'' said John H. Lichtblau, executive director of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation. Indeed, declarations by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries that it has turned the oil market in its favor with a program to curb production are beginning to sound hollow, industry officials and independent analysts say. They note violations of the new quota system by OPEC's members and substantial new supplies from non-OPEC producers.

WHEN Mona Doyle, a marketing pollster, asks people if they want alternatives to the chemical preservatives in their food, most of them say yes. When she asks if they want fruits, vegetables and meat that stay fresher longer, they say yes. But when she mentions a preservation technique that promises to make those things possible, they respond, she says, by asking such half-serious questions as ''Does it make you glow in the dark?'' The technique is irradiation - exposing foods to gamma rays or electrons emitted by radioactive materials - and it may soon do to some consumer foods in this country what it has long done to cosmetics, hospital equipment, baby powders and meals astronauts have eaten on the moon and in orbit: kill off substantial amounts of bacteria in food or sterilize it altogether. The food itself does not become radioactive, just as dental and chest X-rays do not make teeth and lungs radioactive. In low doses, irradiation has little effect on taste.

The political habits of women appear to be undergoing deep changes that worry the Republicans and raise the long-range hopes of the Democrats. A variety of newly available statistics show that women, who in the past have voted at a lower rate than men, are now voting at roughly the same level. These statistics also show that women, whose political attitudes used to be barely distinguishable from those of men, are beginning to take positions on issues that differ sharply from those taken by men. These convergent developments are particularly significant, in the view of political strategists and polltakers of both major parties, because women have begun allying themselves more with Democratic positions. Origins of the Shift Many public opinion experts believe that the partisan shift in the political views of women originated with distrust of President Reagan and a fear that he was too ready to risk a war. Some believe that these attitudes may outlast the Reagan Administration in their effect on his party. But others say there is no evidence that this is more than a temporary phenomenon that may vanish after Mr. Reagan leaves office.