Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 10, 1995 TAG: 9508100039
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-13 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAY L. GARLAND
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The thesis of his book was that working-stiff Democrats would turn against liberalism and vote Republican as the only other game in town. That having come to pass, Phillips now savages the new GOP majority in Congress for setting the stage either for President Bill Clinton's resurrection or a third-party revolt.
As Congress prepares to take its last recess before completing action on the first budget shaped by a Republican majority in 40 years, evidence arrives that the country is changing its mind.
In the first heady months of Newt's New Deal, numerous polls indicated solid support for a revolutionary legislative program to eliminate the deficit while reducing the power and scope of the federal government. In the face of that, Clinton laid low or seemed to concur.
But the work of Congress consists of many voices and much going back and forth. Before very much of the conservative revolution could be set in stone, polls arrived showing it was no longer wanted. The closely watched Wall Street Journal/NBC News Poll reported the other day that only 36 percent of those contacted approved of the job Congress is doing, while 53 percent disapproved.
Clinton is now setting the stage for his re-election in the only way that was ever really open to him: rallying those numerous constituencies that look to government for succor. After months of promising a comprehensive review of federal affirmative-action policies for women and minorities that have come under increasing attack, he proclaimed July 19, "Let me be clear. Affirmative action has been good for America." More recently, he ticked off a number of measures now making their way through Congress that he intends to veto.
Six weeks from now, a game of brinksmanship will be played on the 1996 budget. The GOP balanced-budget plan, like the president's, is largely prospective, with the hard medicine arriving conveniently beyond the next election. But House Republicans have carried the day on a number of tough measures for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.
They have not only significantly reduced funding for a number of federal regulatory agencies, but written language into appropriations bills restricting their power. Gone entirely is money for two of the president's top priorities - AmeriCorps and Goals 2000. The first enrolls college-age people in public-service jobs in return for tuition money, while the second lays out a federal blueprint (sufficiently vague to please most educators) said to be capable of producing vast improvements in the nation's public schools.
Speaker Newt Gingrich & Co. have also shrewdly sought to "de-fund the left" by limiting those hundreds of supposedly private organizations that receive federal grants to spending no more than 5 percent of their budgets on lobbying activities.
That the road to hell is paved with good intentions hardly qualifies as news. But six weeks before Clinton made his ringing defense of affirmative action, federal auditors released a report exposing serious problems in the program run by the Small Business Administration to help minority-owned firms get government contracts without competitive bidding.
The standard Democratic response to all such revelations is echoed in Clinton's much-quoted line on affirmative action: "Mend it, don't end it." That is, hire more inspectors and auditors. But who watches the watchers? Those who benefit always know the drill: Get cozy with your congressperson and lean on him to lean on the bureaucrats.
Senators have surely been working on the budget but are well behind the House pace. Very little time remains to iron out differences between the chambers and present the president a budget before the beginning of the new fiscal year. Both sides now will use the threat of closing down the government to get their way. But Clinton will hold the bully pulpit and most of the cards in that struggle.
Phillips got it half right. The popularity of the GOP Congress is dropping - not because it's doing the wrong thing (nobody really knows that yet) but because it is doing something. While almost everyone articulates a vague desire for change, political risk attaches only to those who actually propose quite specific changes.
So, the talk turns to the deus ex machina, a device of Greek drama in which a seemingly impossible situation is resolved by a god who steps out of a box magically appearing on stage. Close to three-fifths of the people are now said to favor a third party. Or maybe a single good and decent man who rides into the White House on a wave of good will and puts everything to rights.
Our last prospective savior, Ross Perot, did leave us with a memorable and useful line. "The devil is in the details," he said, as congressional Republicans are discovering. My only advice is stay the course; ratting will not reconcile your opponents to you. But I have never believed the country would accept a true conservative regimen until the wolf was not only at the door but actively breaking it down.
Beyond that, fundamental changes in policy occur only when Congress and the president move in harmony. The people make certain that happens infrequently. Why anyone should expect complex and contentious issues to be settled quietly and simply is a mystery.
Ray L. Garland is a Roanoke Times columnist.
by CNB