FOR MOST OF THE PAST TWO DECADES, American politics have been driven to the fight by a crude but powerful assumption: that those “tax and spend” Democrats have been taking away the taxpayers’ hard-earned money and giving it to “them”-the so-called undeserving poor. Will the Republicans give the money back? Voters may soon discover an uncomfortable truth: that the real beneficiary of the welfare state is the middle class. Roughly half of all American families receive some sort of federal benefit-a social-security check, a farm loan, a tax break, a federally guaranteed scholarship. Only a third of all the money spent on government entitlement programs goes to the poor.
The Republican Contract With America offers a modest middle-class tax cut for families-a $500 tax credit for every child –as well as lower capital-gains taxes for investors. The Republicans intend to be responsible about paying for this tax reduction- $147 billion over five years- by cutting about $176 billion from existing programs. Farm subsidies would be cut by about $2.5 billion. In Washington, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts would lose its $100 million-a-year subsidy. Student loans would be cut by $9 billion. Well-to-do Medicare recipients would have to cough up an additional $9 billion.
Even if all these cuts are made, the Republicans will face a huge budget deficit-some $865 billion by the year 2000. They have vowed to require a balanced budget by the year 2002 through a constitutional amendment. Before the election, GOP National Chairman Haley Barbour claimed that the long-term budget gap could be closed “simply” by reducing all entitlement programs – except social security-to an annual growth rate of 3 percent. The reality is not so simple. Medicare and Medicaid have been growing at a rate of 15 percent a year, in part because the population is aging and older people have higher medical bills. Holding the growth rate to 3 percent would require rationing health care-exactly the scenario that conservatives used to help sink the Clintons’ health-reform plan.
The budget cutters would still have a way to go, even if those entitlement programs were brought under control. With social security and defense off the table, the rest of government would have to be severely whacked (chart). “Unreal,” says Rudolph Penner, a Republican who ran the Congressional Budget Office in the 1980s. “Everything in the government would be slashed.” Run-of-the-mill government functions–the national parks, meat inspectors, cancer research, drug enforcement-would take the brunt of the cuts.
The real foe of the balanced-budget amendment may be state governments, most of which must abide by their own balanced-budget laws, Congress will be tempted to dump more costs on the states. Once voters realize that their local taxes will have to go up to pay for the amendment, it may not get the support it needs to be ratified by three quarters of the state legislatures.
IT IS A FAIRLY SURE BET THAT “WELFARE as we know it” will end. Only a dwindling hand of liberals supports the status quo, which allows unmarried mothers to stay on the dole indefinitely. Under the current system, a women who gets a low-paying job risks losing. medical benefits and free child care. Both Clinton and the GOP agree on some fundamental elements: both believe that adult mothers should be pushed off the welfare rolls after two years. They both believe that the government should provide some kind of jobs program for those who can’t find employment in the private sector. And they both want to discourage welfare mothers from having more babies.
Beyond that, them will be fierce debate. The Clinton program would actually cost taxpayers an additional $9.3 billion, because any savings would be more than offset by the cost of a jobs program. The GOP would save $40 billion-but mostly by denying benefits to legal immigrants who have not yet attained citizenship. Democrats will argue that legal immigrants pay taxes and should be entitled to the same benefits as citizens. Republicans are figuring that the public is so ornery and anti-immigrant that such notions of fairness will not resonate.
The Republicans are particularly hard-nosed in their attack on teenage pregnancy. They Would eliminate benefits to any mother under 18 who has a child. Those who couldn’t make ends meet would have a harsh alternative: surrendering their children for adoption. The state would build orphanages for the unwanted. Democrats will argue that such a policy punishes children for the sins of their parents. Republicans will argue that conditions couldn’t get any worse for many welfare children.
The COP would go further still, using welfare as a tool of social engineering. Drug testing would be required, and benefits reduced, for anyone without a high-school diploma. Democrats will resist these steps, but Clinton may feel boxed in. Every time he has moved right on welfare reform, Republicans have moved farther right. He does not want a public fight in which he takes the “soft” position and Republicans the “tough” position-no matter how strict his soft position may be. His best hope may be the COP Senate, which is more moderate than the House and won’t want to be seen throwing women and children into the snow, Governors are not going to like Washington’s race to the right: states will end up with the tab for poor families who no longer receive federal benefits.
THE KEY TO UPENDING THE PERMANENT Washington establishment–the interlocking directorate of interest groups and “career politicians”-is creating a new “citizen legislature,” according to the Contract With America. The first step is term limits, House members would be forced to retire after three terms – six years in office (12 years under a more lenient proposal); senators after two terms – 12 years in office. The idea is popular. Last week grass-roots activists got seven states to approve term limits on their state ballots, bringing the total to 29.. But there are catches. One is that states probably can’t limit the terms of representatives, which are set by the Constitution. The Justice Department is challenging an Arkansas term-its law before the Supreme Court. Gingrich has proposed a constitutional amendment, but it could take years to be ratified by the state legislatures. Gingrich, who has already served 12 years in Congress, would not have to retire. The clock on incumbents would not start running until the amendment is ratified.
Gingrich would also attack the bloated congressional staffs and committee system. The contract pledges that on their first day in power, the Republicans will cut the thousands of starters by one third. The Republicans will go rooting through closets occupied by Democrats for the past 40 years, searching for skeletons. Already Republican staffers are hinting at fresh scandals, such as committee funds being used for personal travel. Gingrich melodramatically fired off a letter to departing Speaker Tom Foley, warning him to take “immediate steps” to ensure that no House documents be removed or destroyed. Gingrich had to move more cautiously, however, when it came to cutting back any of the House’s 23 committees. Though Gingrich has long spoken of abolishing old liberal bastions like the House Education and Labor Committee in order to create an “Empowerment Committee,” he backed out in the face of complaints from Republicans who wanted to be committee chairmen.
The real question is whether Gingrich will try to reform the money culture of Capitol Hill. It now costs roughly $600,000 to win a seat in the House, as much as $20 million to win a Senate seat. Corporate and labor political-action committees keep the money flowing, usually to incumbents. Last week Gingrich told NEWSWEEK that he would seek to abolish political-action committees, as long as there was an increase in the limit on individual contributions (now $1,000) to make up some of the difference. PACs have traditionally favored Democrats simply because they were the officeholders. But most business interests are more ideologically comfortable with Republicans, and the money should start flowing to the Republicans. That will make COP members loath to vote for campaign-finance reform.
It is more likely that Congress will pass stricter rules on lobbying, requiring more disclosure and restricting the freebies and junkets that special interests shower on members and their staffs. A lobbying-re-form bill was killed in the final days of the last Congress–by Republicans, who were in an obstructionist mood. In its majority role, the COP will be under pressure to act more responsibly. Congress will probably also take the radical step of applying laws that govern everyone else to members. At present, members of Congress cannot be sued for violations of the civil-rights laws.
GINGRICH USES THE TERM “CORRUPT welfare state” to apply to almost anything the federal government does, so his attacks on existing programs will be sweeping. In his high-flown professor mode, he sometimes pledges to replace the “rectangle of the liberal welfare state” with the “oblong” of the “conservative opportunity society.” Foreign aid administered by what he calls the “liberal welfare state State Department” will probably be slashed, and a whole range of liberal social policies will come under assault. Gingrich would like to allow school prayer, severely curtail abortions and eviscerate any gun control, like the ban on assault dries passed last year. Congress will probably pass a new crime bill expanding the death penalty and hastening executions of convicted murderers.
The new Republican Committee chairmen are sure to be much friendlier to business than the old guard, like longtime House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman John Dingell, who used to terrorize CEOs with his subpoena power. Gingrich and Co. will go after regulations that “strangle” business, which could mean anything from rules governing the stock market to keeping pesticides out of food. Dingell’s committee has been probing the Golden Rule insurance company for allegedly failing to pay off claims. Since Golden Rule was a leading contributor of “soft money” to the Republican National Committee ($300,000), and the head of Golden Rule, J. Patrick Rooney, is a close personal friend of Newt Gingrich, Democratic Hill staffers are highly doubtful the investigation will continue. There have been many legitimate complaints in recent years about Congress micromanaging the economy and requiting red tape, but there is a risk that the Republicans will overcorrect on their way to Gingrich’s conservative opportunity society.
The new wave threatens to stir up any number of pitched legislative battles. In the Senate, for instance, Orrin Hatch, likely the new chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wants to enact reforms to limit the kinds of lawsuits and the size of awards that personal-injury lawyers can win. One of the planks of the Republican contract is “com-mon-sense legal reform” aimed at “counter-culture” bogeymen like Ralph Nader (and Hillary Clinton) who use the courts to achieve social justice. The Republican legal reformers will be opposed by one of the most powerful lobbies in Congress, the trial lawyers, who fear for their fees.
The Republican ascendancy promises a fight, but it does not guarantee any results. Voters checking the fine print on the contract will note that it promised merely to “vote on” such goals as the balanced-budget amendment and the tax cuts. It did not pledge to make them law. The Democrats still have enough votes to obstruct. The Republicans have only 53 of the 60 votes it takes to fight off a filibuster in the Senate. To overcome a Clinton veto takes a two-thirds majority in the House and Senate –the GOP is about 60 votes and 14 votes shy, respectively. To win their agenda, the Republicans may ultimately need to control not just Congress, but the White House.
Tax and spend Prevention McDonald’s Gays in the military Jogging National Public Radio Marian Wright Edelman Volvos Ralph Nader Jesse Jackson
The Washington Post Midnight basketball Joycelyn Elders Martha’s Vineyard Safe sex Soaking the rich AARP
“NYPD Blue” Seniority Condoms in school Kenny G. The politics of virtue RU-486 Cokie Roberts “Heather Has Two Mommies” Doc Martens Harvard Reinventing government
Borrow and spend Detention Blackie’s House of Beef Gays in the closet Drag racing Rush Limbaugh Bill Kriston Chevy Suburbans Ralph Reed Jesse Helms
The Washington Times Midnight curfews Respect your elders Sea Island, Ga. No sex Bashing the poor NRA
“The Commish” Term limits Prayer in school Amy Grant Old-time religion AK-47 Brit Hume “Resurrection” Wing tips West Georgia College Dismantling government
Both parties thought reform was needed, but the GOP Solution is a tougher one:
Unmarried teen-age mothers get no welfare
No benefits for legal aliens other than refugees and those 75 and older
Unmarried adult mothers are eligible, but if they fail to get high-school diplomas they are docked $75 each month
More kids? No increase in subsidy
Lifetime limit of five years on welfare, two consecutive years maximum
Welfare mothers suspected of drug or alcohol abuse must get treatment and submit to testing
More funding to build group homes and orphanages
ELIMINATE FEDERAL INCOME TAXES! INVADE CUBA AND CUT OFF THE UNITED NATIONS! They sounded like giddy high.school students in a mock government class – or like frustrated politicians out of power for too long. It’s been 40 years since Republicans last controlled both the Senate and the House, and last week they talked boldly about their long-deferred dreams for remaking the federal government. Conservatives like Jesse Helms, Orrin Hatch and Bob Dole, who’ll be Senate majority leader, have hardly held their tongues in recent years. But now they’ll have the power to enact sweeping change as well, A sample of the new congressional leaders and their plans:
The ethics committee is still investigating sexual-misconduct charges. But Bob Packwood won back some GOP affection by helping to block Clinton’s health-re- form plan. As finance chairman, he’s likely to push for a modest bill stressing insurance reforms.
He calls the United Nations “that heinesis” and may oppose treaties curbing chemical weapons. On Foreign Relations; North Carolina’s archconservative Jesse Helms may move to slash foreign aid–and try to redirect Clinton’s Haitian and Cuban policies.
Remember how he excoriated Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas hearings? Now, Utah’s Orrin Hatch will be chairing Judiciary, where he could reopen the debate over the crime bill, move to limit appeals by prisoners on death row and push for tort reform.
She would be the first woman to chair a major congressional committee. At Labor and Human Resources Kansas’s Nancy Kassebaum may move to turn more social programs over to the states. She also opposes the National Service program, set to expire in 1996.
Bostenkowski’s successor on Ways and: Means says he’d like to eliminate federal income taxes–he’d substitute a national sales tax. Bill Archer of Texas also hopes to cut the capital-gas tax rate and set up tax-free personal savings accounts for health care.
Look for another wild ride over Whitewater this spring with Iowa’s Jim Leach heading Banging. Once styled by the White House, Democrats and the special prosecutor, Leach will have broad subpoena pow-er-and an eager ally in his Senate counterpart, Al D’Amato.
Phillip Morris is the largest employer in his Virginia district. Now Thomas Bliley may bead the Health and Environment subcommittee where Democrats grilled cigarette makers. Bliley says that will end: “I don’t think we need any more legislation regulating tobacco.”
Pennsylvania’s William Clinger wants to keep probing the White House Travel Office scandal. As chair of Government Operations, he’ll have the power to investigate virtually anything in the executive branch–including health care and national-security policy.
Republicans have sworn to get rid of the deficit in the next eight years without cutting Social Security or defense spending. Detailed plans aren’t ready, but they will involve cutting other spending by about 30 percent. A sample budget, before and after cuts:
Projected Spending in Billions, Year 2000
STATUS REPUB. PERCENT CATEGORY QUO PLAN CUT Social Security $430 $430 0% Defense 334 334 0 Veterans’ benefits, unemployment, etc. 164 125 24 Medicare, Medicaid 461 320 30 Aid to poor 138 90 35 All other domestic spending 348 224 36
Republicans have pledged to change how the House conducts business. Specifically:
Cut the number of committees. Currently there are 23.
Reduce committee staffs by one third
Impose term limits for committee chairmen
Conduct a comprehensive audit of the House’s books
Ban absentee voting
