Politics / Florio Fights Back
Norquist, Grover G.
Florio Fights Back by Grover G. Norquist F our years ago, New Jersey Governor Jim Florio raised state taxes by a record-breaking $2.8 billion. Despite a campaign promise to oppose higher taxes on...
...Today, government spending on welfare flows through eighty different programs and totals $306 billion a year...
...What happened...
...If true welfare reform is defined in the public mind by Meyers and not Shaw, then Clinton will face the 1994 and 1996 elections as its proven enemy...
...Understanding his vulnerability on health care, Clinton has chosen two other issues to guide his long trek back to the political mainstream: "reinventing government" and "ending welfare as we know it...
...The $108 billion in purported savings would affect only 1.3 percent of total federal spending over the next five years...
...C Linton opened his drive to the center with the release of Vice President Gore's "National Performance Review...
...Candidate Clinton said he would cut off welfare after two years and require that welfare recipients work...
...35 percent think his proposal will reduce it...
...Gore's handlers are hoping that breaking ashtrays on "Letterman" will make voters forget that Senator Gore scored zero on the 1992 Citizens Against Government Waste rating on opposition to pork-barrel spending, and that the National Taxpayers Union rated Gore the biggest spender in the Senate (edging out West Virginia's Robert Byrd) in 1990...
...It remains to be seen whether Bill Clinton can make himself or his party a credible advocate for either, and whether Republicans will counter his efforts or instead follow the errors of the Whitman campaign that may throw away a once-certain governorship this November...
...Not helpful to Democratic candidates in 1994 or himself in 1996...
...After ducking the label in 1992, Clinton spent the first half year of his administration re-establishing himself as a tax-and-spend liberal...
...Today the race is an even bet between Jim Florio and his Republican challenger Christine Todd Whitman...
...Jim Florio capitalized on the Republican abdication by seizing term limits and the initiative as his own issues...
...At Thomas Aquinas College you will read the original works of the men whose thought has changed the world—important people for the right reasons...
...And fewer than 7 percent nationally are engaged in "training, job search or work...
...has proposed a spending-cut commission based on the Military Base Closing Corn-mission,, the brainchild of '':publican Conference Chairman Dick Armey...
...Robert Rector, the Heritage Foundation's welfare expert, points out that if Shaw's bill passes, the headlines will read, "Clinton and Republicans agree on welfare reform, require work...
...Some Republicans in the House, led by Florida's Clay Shaw, are presenting a Clinton-Lite alternative that claims to "require work," but doesn't...
...By 64 The American Spectator November 1993 contrast, the recommendations of the Reagan-appointed Grace Commission, led by businessmen, not federal bureaucrats, would have saved $424 billion over three years, or 14 percent...
...And in the home stretch move to the center on a few key issues, such as welfare reform...
...A badge sewn onto their clothing identifying them as welfare recipients...
...But by responding to Clinton's rhetoric, rather than the reality of his welfare policy, national Republicans now threaten to pull a Christie Whitman...
...House Republicans are urging that an Armey-style commission be established in each federal department...
...A program of tattoos for welfare mothers...
...The state exploded in rage, taxpayers led massive rallies in the state capital, public opinion polls showed Florio a deeply unpopular governor, and the conventional wisdom was that anyone could defeat this unmasked and unrepentant tax-andspend liberal...
...Since 1965, federal, state, and local governments have spent $5 trillion (in 1992 dollars) in the war on poverty—more than it spent to defeat Hitler and Tojo in the more successful Second World War...
...The 65 percent of the Grace proposals that were implemented saved, according to the Office of Management and Budget, $152.4 billion from 1986 to 1989...
...But it is becoming increasingly clear that Clinton is not interested in real downsizing...
...C Linton is having more success on the welfare issue...
...The proposal claims to save taxpayers $108 billion over the next five years and Clinton and Gore got a wonderful David Gergen–orchestrated photo-op on the White House lawn in front of forklifts weighted down with federal paperwork...
...Providing that there will be no AFDC benefits unless paternity is established...
...Republicans, the presumed critics of welfare, gave pro-welfare Democrats cover—in exchange for nothing...
...James Carville is now publicly stating that a Florio win wouldshow Clinton a useful four-year strategy: Hike taxes early...
...Providing that there will be no AFDC payments unless both the mother and father are at least 18 years of age (thus eliminating the incentive of an apartment of one's own...
...Both resonate with taxpayers...
...Developed by leading supplysiders like Lawrence Kudlow and Malcolm Forbes, Jr., the plan could put Whitman back to the right of Florio—at least on the critical tax issue...
...Connie Mack (R-Fla...
...Jan Meyers would cut Clinton off at the pass...
...Only 19 percent of Americans believe Clinton will improve the quality of health care...
...16 percent believe their costs will decrease...
...The Republicans had veto-proof majorities but failed to deliver on their promise to pass term limits on New Jersey's congressional delegation and to pass an amendment to give New Jersey's voters what twenty-four other states have: the right to initiative and referendum...
...Creation of colonies like leper colonies, where welfare recipients would be forced to live...
...C hristine Todd Whitman and New Jersey's Republican state legislature have allowed Jim Florio to do the impossible—reposition himself to the right of her hapless campaign...
...Only 15 percent of Americans have a great deal of confidence in his ability toreform health care...
...Spend the money to buy political allies...
...The nation knows that welfare is broke, and Clinton speaks to this national understanding...
...After winning the presidency with a New Democrat message, Clinton threw it all away with his five-year budget plan, when he decided to fully fund the present welfare state rather than reform it...
...Florio supported an initiative led by Wayne Bryant, a black Democrat in the state legislature, that would reduce welfare payments for additional children born after a woman is already on welfare...
...Clay Shaw is unwittingly helping Bill Clinton do the same thing...
...And Florio now stands to the right of Whitman on welfare reform...
...He then ran a five-month campaign calling for higher taxes...
...Mack's commission would identify $65 billion in spending cuts (no tax hikes) and Congress would have to vote up or down on the entire package...
...While stealing some of its ideas, Gore has been particularly insulting to the Grace effort...
...Despite a campaign promise to oppose higher taxes on the middle class, Florio even hiked taxes on toilet paper...
...Gore's proposed reforms are paltry, and almost 10 percent of their "savings" are taxes in the guise of user fees...
...Shaw is giving Clinton the issue, repeating the mistakes Republicans made in negotiating the Family Support Act of 1988...
...Phil Gramm demanded that Clinton's promise to cut total federal employment by 250,000 be written into law, Clinton balked...
...Christine Todd Whitman reminded New Jersey voters how her personal wealth has isolated her from their values when she responded to Florio's proposal by saying: The Governor is playing to the most vicious stereotype of a welfare recipient in the most demeaning and degrading way possible...
...If Clinton doesn't deliver the $108 billion in cuts, he strengthens his reputation for mendacity...
...We Think College Is Important So You Can Meet the Right People— the Ones Who Can Help You Get Ahead ARISTOTLE FOR INSTANCE Plato taught Aristotle, who taught Alexander the Great...
...They also refused to challenge Florio on most of his tax hikes...
...In September, Florio proposed another welfare reform—a requirement that a mother identify the father before a child would be eligible Grover G. Norquist is president of Americans for Tax Reform...
...He nonetheless told Ross Perot—falsely—that Grace had endorsed the Gore review...
...Thomas Aquinas was Aristotle's disciple...
...Thirty-two percent have no confidence...
...That act authorized billions in additional welfare payments while supposedly "requiring" welfare recipients to work...
...As Republican leaders are pointing out, all you really need to know about the Gore report is that the leaders of the three largest labor unions representing federal bureaucrats have enthusiastically endorsed it...
...For an introduction, call or write: Tom Susanka Director of Admissions Thomas Aquinas College Box 104 t0000 North Ojai Road Santa Paula, CA 93060 800/634-9797 THOMAS AQU EN.AS COLLEGE The American Spectator November 1993 65...
...His first high-profile fight with Congress on economics was over his insistence that taxpayers pour $16.5 billion more into corrupt big-city machines...
...11 • • • Postscript: On September 21, Christine Todd Whitman unveiled a strong pro-growth economic package that would cut New Jersey state spending by five percent and then limit growth to inflation, and cut the income tax by 30 percent while eliminating a number of smaller taxes...
...for welfare, enabling the state to go after the father for child support before taxpayers are sent the bill...
...When Sen...
...Today, five years after this bipartisan demand for work for welfare, fewer than 1 percent of AFDC parents are performing community service in exchange for their benefits...
...F first, in reaction to the Florio tax hikes, the Republican state legislature was given a two-thirds majority in both houses in the off-year election of 1991...
...And Clinton's drift left has hurt his bid to bring one-seventh of the economy under federal control...
...Republicans may be saved by Kansas Republican Jan Meyers, whose rival legislation stakes out three reforms that Clinton's Democratic coalition would have to oppose: • Freezing AFDC spending at 1993 levels and returning the program to the states in a block grant...
...Fifty-six percent of Americans believe Clinton's proposal will increase their personal health costs...
...The problem is that Clinton doesn't believe in it: The 1993 Clinton budget has $110 billion in expanded funding for existing welfare spending and no reform...
...A Yankelovich poll released in September showed Clinton's disapproval rating at 45 percent...
...Her approach draws a line in the sand—putting Republicans on one side and Bill and Hillary Clinton and Donna Shalala on the other...
...Not one dollar was put in to implement workfare...
...What is the Governor's next idea in his headlong rush to embrace extreme right-wing radicalism...
...Bill Clinton is watching the Florio/Whitman race carefully...
...This idea is wildly popular with all sections of thevoting populace...
...And by admitting that the federal government is rife with waste, he steps onto territory where Republicans can outbid him...
...Fine for reassuring his electoral base...
Vol. 26 • November 1993 • No. 11
