ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 14, 1996 TAG: 9601120075
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F2 EDITION: METRO
BY ONE traditional yardstick - laws enacted -the Republican takeover of Congress has had, after a year, only a small impact on public policy.
But this point reflects less the real impact of the takeover than the shortcomings of the traditional yardstick. In fact, the GOP takeover has markedly shifted the terms of the debate, as seen in the budget battle between Congress and a Democratic president and in related issues.
The newly Republican House did adopt internal procedural reforms, and it passed nine of 10 basic items in the House GOP's much-noted Contract With America. But of Contract-related legislation, The Christian Science Monitor recently noted, only three relatively minor bills have actually been signed into law by President Clinton.
The House itself failed to pass one of the 10 basic Contract items, a proposed constitutional amendment (requiring a two-thirds majority) to limit congressional terms. Another, the proposed presidential line-item veto on budget appropriations, is in limbo in a House-Senate conference committee. The others have been blocked - in most cases wisely, we might add - either in the Senate or by presidential veto.
In addition, House Republicans have deferred seeking fundamental changes in environmental-protection regulation, in part because of differences among theselves on environmental issues.
This scorecard approach, however, misses more reality than it captures. Not long ago, Bill Clinton was thought too conservative by many Democrats, likely to be challenged for renomination by Jesse Jackson, to the president's left. Today, that challenge has evaporated. Meanwhile, contenders for the GOP nomination range from conservative to extremely conservative.
The policy debates likewise have shifted. Just two years ago, the health-care argument was about how far America should move toward national health insurance; the middle ground was occupied by those who favored a federal role but in partnership under varous schemes with the private sector. Today, the argument is over how far to reduce the existing federal role; the middle ground is occupied by those who seek to contain Medicare and Medicaid costs but not to end federal guarantees altogether.
Ditto welfare reform. Two years ago, the Clinton administration's expansion of waivers of federal rules for state experimentation, and its call for training and other programs to move people from welfare to work, was the middle-of-the-road position. Today, it is on the left.
And the fiscal battle is no longer about achieving a balanced budget. Keeping in mind how much the margin of error widens as projections are made farther into the future, both the congressional and the administration plans could plausibly do that.
The real budget argument now is between those who view deficit reduction as a matter of fiscal responsibility, and those who view it as a tool for sharply diminishing the role of government. To the former, a tax cut makes little sense when the goal is a balanced budget; to the latter, a tax cut makes a great deal of sense because it, like a balanced budget, is a means to another goal.
The two views are alike, however, in rejecting the Keynesian notion that government deficits can be desirable, at least to a point - a notion that had been driving U.S. fiscal policy, explicitly or implicitly, for half a century.
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