Politics: Welfare Kings
Norquist, Grover G.
POLITICS by Grover G. Norquist Welfare Kings T he budget battle has Republicans and Democrats in a Mexican standoff: Clinton will veto serious tax reductions and entitlement reform, and the...
...Of these, 1,380 apparently voted on November 5. On election day the state Democratic Party hired more than 5,000 election-day workers, and to pay for them, Jenkins reports, the party received last-minute contributions from Emily's List ($55,000) and the Walt Disney Company ($5,000), as well as $194,364 from the same non-federal corporate account of the DNC that received the illegal foreign contributions...
...Jenkins also documents that a computer analysis of 7,500 voters who reportedly live in New Orleans public housing shows that some 3,169 of them are registered to vote at addresses listed as abandoned buildings...
...66 April r 9 9 7 • The American Spectator The Democrats have three goals in mind in clamoring for campaign finance reform...
...Bill Clinton ran in 1992 promising to "end welfare as we know it...
...Jenkins's summary report is worthy of Robert Penn Warren: Some vehicles hired to transport voters to the polls in Orleans parish were used by drivers and others who solicited persons on the streets to make some money...
...If former Soviet republics begin grabbing OPIC-insured American investments, for example, guess who'll foot the bill...
...But left to their own devices, Clinton and the Democrats won't end corporate welfare as we know it...
...OPIC works like the FDIC program that allowed the Savings and Loan crisis, and while it's not OPIC's annual spending that inflates the budget, it's a fact that the American taxpayer is on the hook for some $9 billion in investment risk...
...If so, the Senate could vote to remove Landrieu and seat Woody Jenkins, or require a new election...
...Democratic mythology notwithstanding, Republicans will have plenty to offer business once corporate welfare is eliminated: tax cuts, less regulation, and tort reform...
...Louisiana's new Democratic senator, Mary Landrieu, assumed her chair in January "without prejudice," which means she can be removed by a simple majority vote of the Senate rather than the normal two-thirds...
...There's one danger, congressional Republicans warn: Democrats will try to turn the effort to cut corporate welfare spending into an opportunity to raise taxes...
...Bill Archer, the jealous guardian of tax policy who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, is committed to tax reform, and declares that any change in the tax code that does not lower total taxes will not get through his committee...
...The American Spectator • Ap r i 1 19 9 7 67...
...They knew it was the Democratic Party's left wing that historically benefit-ed most from farm programs, which saw urban liberals voting for farm subsidies in exchange for the otherwise inexplicable support rural congressmen gave welfare entitlements, food stamps, and federal aid to big cities...
...he won in 37 of 64 parishes, and led the race outside New Orleans by 95,00o votes...
...Bad news for corporate welfare—and Mary Landrieu...
...First, they hope to direct attention away from their illegal foreign contributions, as well as the illegal use of the White House in return for campaign contributions...
...The American people took him at his word, and much as he initially resisted, he ultimately had no choice but to sign welfare reform into law along Republican lines if he wanted to be reelected...
...Drawing an analogy to a python slowly crushing its prey, he predicts: "Every time they weaken, we will tighten our grip...
...Edward Kennedy have argued for years that, when the government fails to take a dollar from you, it has actually given you that dollar...
...Congressional Republicans will oppose such efforts to raise taxes under the guise of cutting corporate welfare spending...
...Kansas Republican Sen...
...Under their definition, the investment tax-credit is a "tax expenditure," i.e., a subsidy, when it is more akin to a tax cut...
...According to his deposition, Victor Ortiz resigned as assistant city attorney rather than join the more than 200 city employees forced to campaign for Landrieu...
...Jenkins has submitted documentation of widespread voter fraud beyond the reported election margin to the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, chaired by Virginia's John Warner...
...It's likely that Republicans lose more House, Senate, and gubernatorial races to voter fraud than to illegal campaign contributions...
...Although the Thompson-Burton investigations into Clinton illegalities will have to contend with the disruptive efforts of Democrats John Glenn, Carl Levin, and Henry Waxman, the GOP is well positioned to defend its principles...
...The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), for example, insures corporations investing abroad against expropriation...
...Election-day exit polls had Jenkins winning by a 51-49 margin...
...Other egregious programs include the Market Access ProGROVER G. NORQUIST is president of Americans for Tax Reform...
...Second, they hope to force Republicans into enacting measures such as the McCainFeingold legislation, which would limit total campaign spending for candidates while leaving unions free to spend their members' dues as they did in 1996...
...Vans and cars transported these individuals to various polling places in Orleans parish to vote...
...But Brownback also points to one way Republicans could speed up the process: by cutting corporate welfare spending...
...Landrieu won her race,44 To date, the Democrats have been successful in silencing discussion of voter fraud...
...Oddly, the Democratic Leadership Council, which advertises itself as the voice of Democratic moderation, is a leading backer of raising taxes on businesses and individuals by reducing tax credits and preferences...
...To date the Democrats have been more successful in their third goal: silencing discussion of voter fraud...
...Credible reports of voter fraud in her state...
...Some were paid to vote in their own names at theirnormal voting place and then taken to other voting places, where they voted in the names of others...
...Taxpayer groups have identified some $50 billion in annual spending on government loans, loan guarantees, direct subsidies, research, and other favors to corporate special interests...
...exporters to sell agricultural products below cost— in fact, often below the price U.S...
...The GOP will do the same to corporate welfare, as more light is shed on how scandalous Democratic fundraising politicized the Commerce and Energy departments to raise money from business...
...Clinton and his allies all claim to oppose it...
...Sam Brownback, for one, is confident the budget fights will favor the GOP over the next four years...
...Recall how eagerly Republicans, even though they are the party of farmers, voted to phase out agricultural subsidies last year...
...The elections of 1998 and 2000 will determine whether Republicans gain the power to pass a flat tax, privatize Social Security, and zero out the Departments of Education, Commerce, and Energy...
...As he points out, during his re-election run last year the Democrats attacked him for one thing only: his opposition to their version of campaign finance reform...
...Virtually all were given sample ballots from L.I.F.E., Mayor Marc Morial's political organization, and were instructed to vote for Mary Landrieu...
...One woman, who said she voted three times for Landrieu and was promised $25 for each vote, only received a total of $25 and a Mary Landrieu T-shirt...
...Not all of those who sold their votes were happy with their remuneration...
...Some of those paid for their votes or paid to vote multiple times reported seeing other vans arriving at the same precincts, usually two or three vans at each precinct, delivering large numbers of people...
...Congressional profligates like Sen...
...The new chairman of the Republican Party, Jim Nicholson, signaled that the GOP will not be railroaded into suicidal reforms by appointing former RNC legal counsel David Norcross, a strong McConnell ally, to head the party's task force on campaign finance reform...
...Indeed, in hoping to derail AFDC reform, they popularized the slogan: "Don't cut welfare for the poor, cut corporate welfare...
...The push for real corporate welfare reform will come from Republicans who find the practice both offensive to the free market and costly to taxpayers...
...in which 1.7 million votes were cast, over Republican Woody Jenkins by 5,788 votes—or roughly one vote per precinct...
...Corporate welfare is vulnerable now for the same reason Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC) was vulnerable in the last Congress...
...gram, which spends tens of millions annually advertising American products overseas, and the Export Enhancement Program, whose subsidies permit U.S...
...They hope that a focus on new legislation will imply that there is a bipartisan problem requiring new laws, rather than a problem of Democrats breaking existing laws...
...They'll be happy to do away with any tax-credit or preference that does not deserve to exist—the tax break given to ethanol, for example, thanks to the past campaign contributions of Archer Daniels Midland —but only in the context of real tax reform...
...consumers are charged...
...POLITICS by Grover G. Norquist Welfare Kings T he budget battle has Republicans and Democrats in a Mexican standoff: Clinton will veto serious tax reductions and entitlement reform, and the Republican Congress won't allow tax increases or new entitlements...
...The reason...
...The individuals solicited were told they would receive from $25 to $6o...
...After all, it proved invaluable in raising campaign funds from corporate America...
...Bob Doman narrowly lost his seat in California district last fall, where hundreds of voters have since been found to have registered to vote before becoming citizens...
...It is up to Warner to decide if the evidence warrants a Senate investigation...
...Senator Thompson may win the headlines, but Senator Warner's investigation into Louisiana voter fraud just might do a lot more to clean up American politics...
...Such a move would make union spending relatively more important in the political process, and would also greatly increase the power of the media: unable to buy sufficient advertising time to address voters directly, candidates would find their messages obscured by the media's filter...
...Maryland's governorship was almost certainly stolen through voter irregularities in Baltimore City in 1994...
...These voters for hire were paid from $io to $12o...
...Vans often hauled three to eight people taking them to several precincts to vote...
...In other cases, these paid and fraudulent voters did not sign the precinct register, but were directed to go straight into the voting machines and vote...
...Mitch McConnell will lead the fight against any campaign finance reform package that would do violence to the First Amendment while leaving labor with a free hand...
...McConnell won with 55 percent of the vote...
...The same dynamic is at work over corporate welfare...
...In that city, however, Landrieu racked up the loo,oco votes she needed...
...Warner — a powerful spokesman in this case given his reputation as a moderate, good government senator who has often broken with conservatives — is said to be outraged at the level of corruption the Jenkins campaign has uncovered through its own investigations: testimony from people who illegally took voters to the polls to vote under other names, and others who were paid to vote repeatedly in some precincts and, in some cases, to travel from precinct to precinct voting repeatedly in return for cash...
Vol. 30 • April 1997 • No. 4
