An offer too good to refuse; Americans put out a contract on big government.
Meyerson, Adam
In the Spring of 1993, Policy Review predicted that "1994 will
be the most important year in American politics since the 1980 race
between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan." At least we got that one
right.
"If the Democratic Party maintains its overwhelming majority in
both Houses of Congress in 1994," Policy Review went on to say,
"then the Reagan Revolution truly will be over, and the federal
government will likely grow in size and intrustiveness into American
life. If, however, the Republican Party makes substantial gains, then
there is a good chance that the Clinton presidency will be just a
temporary interruption in the downsizing of central government. These
choices were muddied in 1992 because Mr. Clinton ran to the right of
President Bush on many taxing and spending issues. In 1994, the choices
will be clearer."
The choices certainly were clear in 1994, and so was the message of
the voters. Thanks mostly to President Clinton's health care plan,
but also to his crime bill, his tax increases, and his regulatory
excesses, the party of the donkey was openly identified with liberalism
and the cause of bigger government, especially in Washington. In sharp
contrast, the party of the elephant stood more strongly for smaller
government at all levels--federal, state, and local--than at any time in
over a generation. When voters were given this clear choice, the result
was an elephant stampede.
The magnitude of the GOP victory was a tribute to many of its
leaders. To Bob Dole and the Senate Republicans, whose guerrilla warfare and united resistance to Clintonism blocked many of the
administration's worst initiatives. To Haley Barbour, one of the
greatest chairmen in Republican National Committee history, who brought
his party back to conservative ideas and to Politics 101--grass-roots
organizing and candidate recruitment. To governors such as Christie
Whitman of New Jersey, John Engler of Michigan, and Tommy Thompson of
Wisconsin, who showed, after the Bush Betrayal of 1990, that at least
some Republicans keep their promises to cut taxes and reduce the size of
government. The number of states with a Republican governor and GOP
control of both houses of the legislature rose from three to 15, as
voters took a gamble that Republican promises of tax and spending cuts
were not simply the cynical political gestures they have often proved to
be before.
Above all, the Republican sweep was a tribute to Newt Gingrich, Dick
Armey, and their Republican House colleagues, whose Contract With
America did something the GOP should have done long ago--show clearly
what difference it would make if Republicans instead of Democrats
controlled the House. In Winter 1992, Policy Review asked then House
Minority Leader Robert Michel to write an article on what House
Republicans would do if they took charge. His only answer was
congressional reform--cutting congressional staff, reforming internal
House rules, applying to the House the same regulations the Congress
applies to everyone else. Michel's answer, in short, was what
Gingrich promised for Day One of Republican control. He left out the
other 99 days!
What a difference new leadership made! The Gingrich-Armey contract
made 41 pages of concrete promises to the American people on tax relief,
a balanced budget amendment, welfare reform, crime control, defense
readiness, and other leading issues. No one can deny that this is what
the American people voted for: The Democrats spent millions publicizing
the GOP Contract in what turned out to be one of the most issues-driven
campaigns of recent decades.
SOLEMN OBLIGATION
The GOP Contract, though, was more than just a platform. It was a
solemn obligation. It was the genius of Gingrich, Armey, and their House
Republican colleagues to recognize that the American people want not
only smaller government, they want accountability. The citizens are
furious over broken promises--not only by Presidents Bush and Clinton
but by most of the political class. And this is why the new Republican
leadership in the Congress must honor its promises in the Contract, if
it is to have any hope of converting the GOP landslide of November 1994
into a lasting governing majority. Voters will surely punish Republicans
for breach of contract if they fail to follow through on their
commitments. The Contract must be honored in spirit as much as letter,
which means the new Republican leaders must vote to limit their own
terms of office, even though they didn't explicitly promise to do
anything more than hold a vote on the subject.
The most daunting challenge for the new Congress will be to cut
domestic spending in order to deliver on the tax relief and
balanced-budget promises of the Contract. Voters in November clearly
told politicians that they want less government, but they didn't
indicate which programs they want cut. This is not an example of voter
"irrationality," in the condescending phrase of media pundits;
voters expect the legislators they elect to sort out competing
priorities, which, after all, is how representative democracy is
supposed to function. The trouble is, as David Frum points out in his
book Dead Right, Republicans have done very little in recent years to
make the political case for specific spending cuts.
The good news for Republicans, though, is that this is the best time
in decades to cut federal spending. For one thing, the economy is strong
enough to cushion the blows that government downsizing will inflict.
Like any other necessary restructuring in the economy, cutting federal
spending will cause temporary hardships for families, for communities,
for businesses. Better to do it in a time of rapid job growth and
technological dynamism.
Advantage two is that Ronald Reagan and George Bush won the cold War.
While spending will have to rise for readiness, missile defenses, and a
few other items in the military budget cut too sharply by Clinton, no
enormous military buildup is necessary as it was in the 1980s. Unlike
Reagan Republicans who had to go easy on domestic spending in order to
win votes for the defense buildup, Gingrich Republicans can concentrate
their firepower on bringing the federal government down to size.
Perhaps most important, Americans know that surgery is necessary,
especially if it can be accompanied by a sweetener such as tax relief.
One of the clearest messages of the November elections is that
pork-barrel politics no longer works--voters would no longer re-elect a
Tom Foley or Dan Rostenkowski or Jack Brooks simply because he could
bring home more bennies to their district. By contrast, even in a very
liberal state such as Maryland, an Ellen Sauerbrey running on tax and
spending cuts could come within a whisker of being elected governor.
CITIZENS' HEARINGS
Americans will be willing to endure the hardship of government
spending cuts, so long as their own programs aren't singled out for
the budget axe, and so long as it is clear that their children and
grandchildren will benefit. This means it will be easier to cut many
programs rather than few, because more people will be willing to
sacrifice if everyone takes a hit. All regions, all income classes,
rural areas as well as suburbs and cities, must be affected. Labor
Secretary Robert Reich was absolutely right when he urged that
Republicans wield their scalpels at corporate welfare as sharply as at
public assistance for the poor.
On way to promote a spirit of shared sacrifice would be to convene
congressional hearings and town hall meetings across America, with
testimony from citizens willling to see cuts in programs from which they
benefit. Call them, in the positive spirit of the Contract, the
Citizens' Hearings for Tax Relief and Economic Opportunity.
That's because the purpose of budget-cutting is not for
Scrooge-like parsimony. Rather it is for the tax relief and long-term
debt reduction that American families have said they want.
Consider the opportunities such hearings might offer to build
momentum for spending cuts. Farmers would be found who would testify
that, even though it would hurt, they would be willing to take their
share of spending cuts--that there really is no need for farm subsidies
except in times of massive agricultural depression. Retired military
officers would come forward to say that they really don't need full
pensions in their 40s and 50s, particularly at a time when young
servicemen are overtaxed and struggling to make ends meet. City dwellers
would testify that their mayors and city councils wouldn't need any
special money from Washington if they spent their own revenues more
carefully, and didn't drive middle-class residents and businesses
out to the suburbs through overtaxation, over-regulation, and overly
bureaucratic schools and police departments.
So, too, small-business owners would be invited to come forward to
testify that they don't really need a Small Business
Administration, that what would really help them would be lower capital
gains taxes and a repeal of onerous regulations such as the Americans
with Disabilities Act. Welfare recipients and public housing residents
would testify how poverty programs discourgae personal responsibility
and economic mobility. Residents of Washington state would explain how
they'd be willing to accept a phase-out of Bonneville Power
Authority subsidies, while residents of Houston and suburban
Atlanta--Gingrich's district--could talk about ways to trim the
NASA space program. Hollywood actors and producers might testify on
their plans to raise private funds to finance National Public Radio and
the National Endowment for the Arts, in order to relieve taxpayers of
costs that could easily be underwritten by the private sector.
Republican Members of Congress could get the ball rolling--and win
enormous good will--by voting to cut their own congressional pay and
pensions, and to slash their own personal office staff.
The tone of the discussion should not be completely anti-government.
On the contrary, Republicans can even enlist many liberals and centrists
on behalf of their cause by arguing that government will be stronger,
more effective, and more compassionate if it does a small number of
things and does those things very well. At the same time, it must be
made clear that the federal government has taken too much responsibility
for decisions away from families, businesses, and local communities.
Americans voted in November to take their country back, and that means
limiting government in Washington.
Republicans dare not refuse the offer made by the American people. If
the GOP does not deliver on its Contract, its role in history will be
only transitional, much like Mikhail Gorbachev who was unable to follow
through on the revolution he unleashed in the Soviet Union. But if
Republicans govern as they campaigned, they will lead America through
one of the most creative periods of far-reaching institutional reform in
our national history, and they will dominate American politics for
decades to come.