THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 2, 1994 TAG: 9409300520
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KEITH MONROE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
Let's try a little thought experiment. It's January 1995. On a tide of Clintonphobia, the Democrats have been swept out and a new conservative Congress has been sworn in. Mr. Speaker is none other than Newt Gingrich. And in the Senate, where George Mitchell once reigned, Bob Dole is in charge.
Oliver North is now the junior Senator from Virginia and the Old Dominion has also sent a largely Republican delegation to the House. Jim Chapman is representing the 2nd District, for instance.
This remarkable turn of events is partly due to the Republicans' decision to run on a Contract with America. Candidates promised in September to pass within a hundred days a conservative wish list dreamed up by Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey.
If voters don't get action, they are likely to conclude the Contract was a con job. Especially since it was touted as ``a signed covenant between Republican House candidates and the people they represent.''
What exactly have Republicans solemnly vowed to enact in the first 100 days of the 104th Congress?
They will make welfare recipients work, cut them off after five years and deny AFDC benefits completely to teen mothers. They will enact tougher laws on child pornography and sexual assault, tax incentives for adoption and encourage more death penalties. They will stop passing unfunded mandates.
But the heart of the matter is tax cuts and spending increases.
Defense spending will be increased $60 billion over the next five years.
Taxes will be cut somewhere between $120 and $200 billion a year. Capital gains taxes will be cut in half. The exemption for each child will be increased. The marriage penalty will be eliminated. Businesses will get more write-offs. Taxes on some Social Security recipients will be rolled back.
Those are clearly crowd-pleasing ideas, but they appear guaranteed to create $700 billion more in deficit spending over five years. That's prompted critics to dub the Contract with America - Voodoo II.
Not to worry, though. The Contract's sponsors say they will not increase the deficit but eliminate it. How? By passing a balanced budget amendment. But if all the Contract's spending increases and tax cuts are enacted, it will take $140 billion a year in spending cuts just to keep deficits where they are today. Eliminating them would require up to $300 billion a year in spending cuts.
When asked where cuts of that size could be made, a spokesman for candidate Chapman listed highway boondoggles in West Virginia, a water project in Texas, a moving sidewalk here and a parking garage there. But that's mere millions. Hundreds of billions in cuts would require the elimination of virtually all government programs other than defense and Social Security. No courts. No Congress. No national parks, CIA, NASA, agricultural subsidies, FDA, EPA, Medicaid, veterans benefits, government pensions.
Other provisions of the Contract promise steps that aren't even to the Republicans advantage. They say they will reform Congress by cutting the number of committees, slashing staff by a third, and limiting terms for committee chairmen.
The Contract also calls for the line-item veto, so President Clinton would have virtually dictatorial power over what little remained of the budget after the rest of the Contract was fulfilled.
And the Contract promises term limits of six years for the House and 12 for the Senate. The House class of '94, the Jim Chapmans of the world, would be required to hang it up in 2000. North would be forced to honor his pledge to only serve two terms. And most Republicans already in office would run out of time in 1996.
In effect, the Republican leadership is proposing to put out a contract on itself. Those who would perish at the hands of term limits are a roll call of heavy hitters. Majority leader Dole (26 years) and Speaker Gingrich (16 years), of course. But many other familiar names as well. Senators like Jesse Helms, Alan Simpson, Richard Lugar, Strom Thurmond, Alphonse D'Amato and Phil Gramm. House members like Henry Hyde, Bob Dornan, Dick Armey, Jim Leach.
Dozens would be history. It is a far, far better thing they do than they have ever done. It is a far, far better rest they go to than they have ever known. by CNB