THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 7, 1996 TAG: 9604030006
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
After an unproductive 14 months, Congress engaged recently in a bout of pre-recess activity. Unfortunately, a lot of it was for show - election-year votes with more symbolic value than practical substance.
Democrats and Republicans each attempted to bring up issues that appeal to their core supporters. There were votes on rare but controversial late-term abortions and to lift a ban on assault weapons. There was an attempt to put a minimum-wage increase on the agenda. Real legislative accomplishment wasn't the goal. A recorded vote that can be used to raise funds from special interests or to hold against candidates in October campaign commercials was.
Even the bills that actually passed sounded better in prospect than they turned out to be in fact. The version of the line-item veto that passed is a major disappointment.
Almost 70 percent of federal spending is off-limits - debt service and entitlements. Also exempt from the line-item veto as passed are most revenue-raising measures, so a serious assault is impossible on tax breaks and other corporate-welfare loopholes that account for tens of billions a year. But since the line-item veto was part of the Contract With America, Republicans wanted to be able to say they'd passed it. This sham version is the result.
Another case of less than meets the eye is the new farm bill. It's been touted as the end of an anachronistic and market-distorting system of subsidies whose roots go back to the Great Depression.
It's true that the bill calls for subsidies to be phased out. But farmers now on the dole will stay on the dole until 2002. They'll receive $36 billion over the next seven years, billions more than if the law hadn't changed. They'll get to keep $1.7 billion in subsidies that they otherwise would have repaid, and they will receive $5.6 billion upfront - before Election Day. That's vote-buying in the farm states on an impressive scale.
It might be worth the price if the old system were really dead, but that is contingent on a vote seven years from now. If a later Congress flinches at the last minute, the old program will be automatically reinstated. And even with all these hedges, some crops aren't even covered by the reform. Subsidies that cost consumers big bucks at the checkout line will continue on peanuts and sugar.
In another move sure to please an important contingent of voters, Congress finally increased how much money seniors between the ages of 65 and 70 can earn without suffering a reduction in their Social Security benefits.
It's reasonable to remove disincentives to work for those of any age, but the change will lose $70 billion in revenue over seven years. Like the farm bill that will cost more, not less, and the toothless line-item veto, this measure will fatten the deficit not slim it. A responsible Congress would make it a rule to pass no law raising the deficit without mandating a decrease of corresponding size somewhere else in the budget. But no.
As to balancing the budget, reducing the deficit, reforming welfare, campaign finance, Medicaid and Medicare, all appear to be on hold until the shape of the next Congress, the party of the next president are determined. In short, Washington has not reformed. by CNB