November 19, 1995

FEW spectators watched the Suffolk County Legislature as it approved more than $200 million in taxes, borrowing and appropriations the day after Election Day. The timing was apparently intended for the moment of maximum political shelter from an electorate that showed limited interest, and the vote attracted little attention.

FINALLY, the main event. Congress's votes to send President Clinton the Republicans' budget reconciliation bill, with its seven-year balanced budget, tax cut and sharp curbs of Medicare and Medicaid spending, will take a very serious fight beyond side issues. The national debt and partial closing of the Government are hardly trivial, but as political problems they do not approach the one posed by the budget -- just how big a role the Federal Government should have in American life.

WITH a 21-month limit on welfare benefits to go into effect in January, state welfare recipients may well find themselves learning how to operate a cash register, display merchandise and dress for success in the months ahead. Such steps may represent the most concrete effect of the vast overhaul of the state's welfare system that the General Assembly adopted earlier this year and that Gov. John G. Rowland made one of his major campaign pledges.

Yitzhak Rabin's handshake with Yasir Arafat at the White House on Sept. 13, 1993, spelled the end of the world that Yigal Amir believed God had given the Jews. At the Institute for Higher Torah Studies, where Mr. Amir was a diligent, argumentative student, the moment of reconciliation between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders that was greeted so warmly around the world seemed a catastrophe; the celebration at home obscene.

Just as it has been all year, the tale of women's tennis boiled down to a case of the best, Steffi Graf, against the rest. After major upsets, major excuses and major controversy, there remained just one major champion in the cast that assembled yesterday at Madison Square Garden to winnow the contenders at the 1995 WTA Tour Championships to two finalists, neither of whom would be named Monica.