The GOP Lays Out Its Game Plan

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Feb 28, 2000 | by Jennifer G. Hickey

J.C. Watts fashions the Republican agenda for the election year as the House takes up the marriage tax and military aid to Taiwan, while the Senate debates tighter bankruptcy rules.

Rosie O'Donnell isn't singing yet. Thanks to stronger-than-expected showings in New Hampshire by former New Jersey senator Bill Bradley and Arizona Sen. John McCain, the presidential nominations were not settled as quickly as the pundits first thought. Although Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore still are heavily favored to win the nominations, the relative strength of the parties in the fall election campaign will be affected by what does -- or does not -- get accomplished in the second legislative session of the 106th Congress.

In his final State of the Union speech, President Clinton unloaded what seemed to be two terms' worth of legislative initiatives and looked at the GOP majority to sort out the mess. "The State of the Union was a great public-relations speech, but there is the problem of where the rubber meets the road," Oklahoma Republican Rep. J.C. Watts tells Insight.

With a slim majority in the House, 222-211, the Republican leadership is offering a game plan based on policy and rhetoric that promise not to squander the nearly $2 trillion budget surplus. As chairman of the House Republican Conference, the fourth-highest position in the GOP leadership, Watts is the one most responsible for fashioning an effective and coherent message to take into the November congressional and presidential elections. While House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois and House Majority Whip Tom DeLay of Texas will be responsible for calling the plays to execute on the game plan, it is Watts who will be taking the snaps.

Aware of the Republicans' reluctance to do too much, and attempting to lay the groundwork for an election-year characterization of the 106th as a "do-nothing Congress," House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt outlined areas of party disagreement. "We don't have unanimity on the patients' bill of rights, on gun-safety legislation, on a minimum-wage increase, on campaign-finance reform," moaned the Missouri Democrat, who wishes to be speaker. With the presidential nominating conventions only half a year away, Congress is shooting for the end of July to pass a budget and related appropriations bills, beginning with a series of smaller proposals, probably 20 items, by mid-March.

Delivering a message that has been echoed by a host of Republicans in both the House and the Senate, Watts points to change in the nature of the debate. "There has been a huge cultural shift. Everybody is now talking about paying off the debt and saving Social Security," the three-term congressman says, crediting Republican fiscal policy for the balanced budget and subsequent surpluses.

For this former minister and University of Oklahoma quarterback the current message is a perfect fit. In a speech to a mock presidential convention at Virginia's prestigious Washington and Lee University, Watts displayed the ability both to hush the crowd to complete silence and to generate gregarious whoops and hollers. "I fought in November when we adjourned to come back in early in January and go on the offensive," he tells Insight in an extended interview. "Either you are on defense or on offense, and I think we have to be more aggressive."

The game plan was apparent when Watts delivered the GOP response to a recent Clinton radio address. "And the marriage penalty is just the beginning," he said. "We cannot allow the Democrats' risky, budget-busting tax scheme to raid the Social Security trust fund and hike inflation, turning back the clock on all we have accomplished" he declared, tearing a page from the rhetorical playbook of the Democrats.

By continuing to reiterate their accomplishments while pushing forward with smaller legislative initiatives, the Republicans hope to hold off a Democratic minority cockily boasting of its chances this fall. The first piece of business on the GOP agenda is to terminate the indefensible and easily explained marriage-penalty tax.

Despite overwhelming public support for eliminating the marriage penalty, to which Clinton appealed in his Jan. 27 address with a bit of sleight of hand that would have capped it to favor only a few, legislation for complete elimination recently voted out of the House Ways and Means Committee appears to be the first skirmish in the battle for Congress. Introduced by Texas Republican Rep. Bill Archer, the committee's chairman, the GOP bill would use part of the projected budget surplus gradually to enlarge the bottom 15 percent tax bracket to apply to more income for two-income married couples, increase the standard deduction beginning in 2001 and expand the earned-income tax credit for lower-income married people. The plan would cut taxes for married couples by $182 billion over 10 years, as opposed to the administration's 10-year $45 billion plan.

Both the Clinton administration and GOP plans increase the standard income-tax deduction for married couples to twice that for single tax filers, which would translate into a standard deduction of $8,800, compared with $7,351 at present. The administration's bill primarily would affect couples who pay the marriage penalty, while the Archer bill would be more family-friendly because it cuts taxes for couples regardless of whether they currently are penalized.