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  • 标题:An offer too good to refuse; Americans put out a contract on big government.
  • 作者:Meyerson, Adam
  • 期刊名称:Policy Review
  • 印刷版ISSN:0146-5945
  • 出版年度:1995
  • 期号:January
  • 语种:English
  • 出版社:Hoover Institution Press
  • 摘要:"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."
  • 关键词:Political reform

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.
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