1998 Ad

THE writing has been on the wall for more than a year. It was clear from the big-spending budget deal of 1997 that Republicans had thrown in the towel on limited government for this Congress. The spending caps of which they boasted, we predicted, would soon be busted. And so it has come to pass. It took Monica Lewinsky, however, to make the policy rout complete. Republican leaders, counting on conservatives' anger toward President Clinton to bring them to the polls, cynically decided that they did not need to advance their agenda. All year, as the projected surpluses grew, they reduced the size of their tax-cut proposals. Eventually the House approved $80 billion and the Senate proposed $30 billion. Then Clinton convinced the GOP to abandon even these-although, according to Citizens for a Sound Economy, taxes could have been cut by $1.5 trillion over the next ten years without affecting Social Security payouts. Middle-class families continue to labor under the highest peacetime tax burden in American history. The $1.7-trillion Federal Government will continue to grow at a rate well above the inflation rate. In Fiscal Year 1999, according to a calculation by NR's Stephen Moore, Washington will spend as much, adjusted for inflation, as it did during the whole time between 1787 and 1920. Since it came to power in 1995, the Republican Congress has allowed spending to increase at a rate only slightly lower than it did during the last four years of Democratic control. The budget includes everything from $250,000 for chewing-gum research to $200 million for subsidies to dairy farmers, who are, incidentally, benefiting from high milk prices this year. This latter figure is part of a $6-billion agricultural handout, including "disaster relief" that will aid even farmers who refused to buy crop insurance and signed waivers saying they would not accept federal support. The International Monetary Fund will get $18 billion and, in a concession to the GOP, undergo reforms of limited usefulness (see Alan Reynolds, "Imperial Rule," p. 45). Another $1 billion in new education spending is earmarked for hiring teachers, continuing the destructive focus on inputs rather than outcomes that has characterized our national education policy for a generation. Spending may be irresistible in a time of plenty, but Republicans also gave ground on other issues. Roughly three hundred health-insurance plans for federal employees will now be required to cover five types of prescription contraceptives, including some that act as abortifacients. When Sen. Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) lost a vote earlier this year attempting to eliminate the Department of Transportation's minority set-aside programs, he inserted an amendment offering fast-track Supreme Court review if they came under legal scrutiny. The Clinton Administration fought this modest provision furiously, knowing full well that it is essentially ignoring the Court's 1995 Adarand decision. So the GOP let it vanish during negotiations; two years after California passed Proposition 209, Congress has still done nothing to chip away at racial preferences. On Census sampling, the Democrats won another victory. Republicans never expected to enact a ban on the practice this year, but they wanted to structure the Commerce Department's funding in such a way as to force a showdown with the White House next March, perhaps in the immediate wake of an expected Supreme Court ruling. Instead, GOP leaders have let Democrats keep the Census Bureau's money rolled into a massive appropriation for the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, and to provide funding until next June-when the White House can threaten a shutdown including popular and important government functions such as providing passports, and the GOP can fold yet again. Republicans managed to extract a few concessions from the Democrats. They maintained a ban on national testing standards, although, in self-defense, they funded efforts to develop them. They also prohibited needle-exchange programs for heroin addicts, which, whatever the policy merits, was not much of a political achievement. They also won a one-year ban on an effort to federalize drivers' licenses-a stealth national ID card. GOP leaders have crowed about other aspects of the deal, but here the benefits are much more illusory. More than one-third of the $10-billion increase in "defense" spending does not actually go to the military. It includes funds for anti-terrorism initiatives such as embassy security and more than $100 million for a new visitor center at the Capitol Building. These may be needed; to call them "defense" spending, however, shows a Clinton-like disregard for the truth. In the meantime, the budget will do little to help the military increase its readiness for war. All in all, this budget is an appropriate conclusion to a Republican Congress that has lacked the imagination even to conceive of a politics both principled and smart. It also permits a verdict on Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R., Miss.), who led the retreat. Elected amid high conservative hopes, he has turned out to be a visionless Beltway fixer: Bob Dole with a drawl and a taste for pork. In fairness, Republicans have inherited a budget-making process designed to increase spending and keep taxes high; but so much the worse that they did not change it. And they were understandably wary of another battle over a federal shutdown with President Clinton. But none of this justifies the giddy yet defensive proclamations of budget victory now emanating from the Republican spin machine. This is the response of people who know they have reason to feel guilty. Republicans' achievements during this Congress have been almost entirely negative: beating back tobacco taxes, minimum-wage hikes, campaign-finance restrictions. The agenda for next year is a mystery; impeachment is practically all that is left to backtrack on. Republican leaders have become adept at rationalizing cowardice as deft politics. But their inertia does not merely upset their conservative constituency; it leaves the broader public with no reason to favor them. Scandal may see them through this election, but parties rarely drift into a strong national majority. They are left saying that things would have been worse if the Democrats ran Congress, which is probably true. But it's a distressingly close call.