The importance of the 1996 elections - Editorial

Nation's Business, Sept, 1996

Don Fowler, national chairman of the Democratic National Committee, says the 1996 elections will be the most important since those of 1932.

The latter year was certainly a watershed in American history. Government intrusion into virtually all areas of the economy, originally justified as emergency steps to fight the Depression, became a fundamental philosophy that endured for generations.

While Fowler's remark might charitably be attributed to the New Deal nostalgia that still permeates much Democratic thinking, his electoral comparison is nevertheless off. The most important elections since 1932 were those of 1994, and this year's will be equally crucial.

Two years ago, voters turned control of Congress over to a Republican majority specifically committed to reversing the trend that began in 1932 - the unrelenting amassing of power and resources by the central government. This Congress has shifted the fundamental debate from how much more to spend, tax, and regulate to how much to reduce spending, taxation, and regulation.

The basic issue in the 1996 elections is whether this reversal will continue.

Rep. Richard K. Armey, R-Texas, majority leader of the House of Representatives, says one measure of the stakes involved is the $35 million campaign war chest that organized labor has raised to restore a Democratic majority - and business as usual - to the House.

"The union bosses are going to extremes, and there is good reason for it," Armey told a business audience at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "They are energized to buy this election because they know it is quite simply their last chance to maintain their influence over the government of this country [and because] they know their man in the Oval Office is their last hope of maintaining the politics of dependency."

While 44 percent of union members consider themselves conservative, Armey said, "almost 100 percent of their involuntary political contributions go to Democrats." He also noted that despite overwhelming rank-and-file support for a balanced federal budget and tax relief the "union bosses" oppose such initiatives.

He stated: "Working Americans recognize that the best course for America is a return to the ideals of independence, self-reliance, and voluntary cooperation that made both business and organized labor positive forces in American life. Both Bill Clinton and the union bosses know they have no role to play in an America based on those positive ideals."

Besides organized labor, another formidable group supporting the liberal agenda of President Clinton and his congressional allies, said Armey, consists of the nation's trial lawyers, who were collectively the largest single contributor to the president's 1992 election campaign. That support, the majority leader said, "has netted them Clinton's veto of both [reform of] securities litigation and product-liability reform."

Said Armey. "If the union bosses and trial lawyers succeed in purchasing the Congress and renewing their lease on the White House, it is the working families of this nation who will pay the price. We will have higher taxes and spending. We will have more regulation. We will have a bankrupt Medicare and Social Security system. We will have more government intrusion and less opportunity. And we will leave a debt for our children and grandchildren to pay for decades to come.

"That is what this election is about."

Many business people are well-aware of what is involved in this November's balloting. For the others, Armey's words should constitute a wake-up call on the need to be fully informed and fully involved in assuring that the era launched two years ago was indeed a new beginning.