The Public Policy: Newt's Latest Fiasco
Bovard, James
THE PUBLIC POLICY by James Bovard Newt's Latest Fiasco 0 n October 16 House Speaker Newt Gingrich declared himself "so proud of the budget negotiations" that had produced a 4,000plus-page,...
...summed up the dilemma facing Republicans on the budget agreement: "If we don't take a stand today, what's going to happen to make us more courageous a year from now...
...all of it goes to the local school districts...
...Republicans oversee a tax system that gives Congress huge windfalls every year—and they treat the slightest little rebate as proof of their munificence...
...Congressmen justified "emergency" aid to crop farmers because of low wheat and corn prices...
...The most important part of the October budget agreement was what it did not include: meaningful tax reduction...
...but if that is the case, there will be little or no control over how the money is spent...
...He defended the budget agreement by saying that "in a free society when you are sharing power between the legislative and executive branch, that is precisely the outcome you should expect to get...
...An additional dose of federal money is not going to reverse these trends...
...Despite all the horror stories of IRS atrocities that turned up in Senate hearings, Congress forgave and forgot and once again raised the IRS budget...
...In the battles over the budget, few members of Congress on either side of the aisle gave any sign of recognition that they were spending other people's money...
...p erhaps the most amusing item in the bill is the $6 million to help start the Robert Dole Institute for Public Service and Public Policy at the University of Kansas...
...Rod Grams (R-Minn...
...Gingrich promoted a tax cut of $70 to $8o billion dollars over five years, which on October 16 he declared to be "about the right amount"—even though it came to less than one percent of federal revenues over that time...
...While Gingrich claims that people deserve only a one-percent tax cut, federal tax collections are increasing three times faster than the inflation rate...
...troops...
...Federal subsidies lead to federal controls because politicians seek political power...
...Some of Gingrich's comments on the budget bill were as disingenuous as Bill Clinton's...
...Those of us who have grown up and matured...
...Bill Clinton framed the issue by proclaiming the need to shift average school class size from 22 to 18...
...Yet the freedom of society depends not on whether Congress shares power with the president, but on whether government power is limited and people's rights and property secure...
...federal revenues have soared by 25 percent: reaching $1.72 trillion...
...A 1998 report by Congress's Joint Tax Committee concluded that "hidden taxes force more than 33 million Americans into higher tax brackets" than they are aware of...
...Why should anyone expect the IMF itself to act any differently...
...THE PUBLIC POLICY by James Bovard Newt's Latest Fiasco 0 n October 16 House Speaker Newt Gingrich declared himself "so proud of the budget negotiations" that had produced a 4,000plus-page, 40-pound agreement between Republican leaders and President Clinton...
...In 20 states, teachers must either pay union dues or lose their jobs...
...New details have seeped out on the final bailout, which is part of the budget deal...
...The budget act also allocates $1 million to create a Mark Hatfield School of Government at Portland State University and $1 million for a Paul Simon Public Policy Institute...
...What will people learn there...
...Since 1994, the year Republicans took over Congress, JAMES BOVARD'S latest book is Freedom in Chains, to be published in February by St...
...Martin's Press...
...One of the most controversial parts of the budget deal was increased federal spending on education...
...Gingrich bragged in a speech reviewing the achievements of this Congress that it "did change the Internal Revenue Service and we returned the burden of proof to the government and we protected individuals from government's intervention...
...The president got his $1.1 billion and the Republicans got their label: "Dollars for Classrooms...
...For instance, the self-employed will pay up to six percent more in Social Security taxes in 1999, as the maximum base on which self-employment taxes must be paid rises from $68,400 to $72,600...
...TAS's Tom Bethell long ago recognized how the phrase "matured" is used in Washington as praise for Republicans who betray their principles...
...Dick Armey and Gingrich required Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin to promise that the IMF would be reformed before they signed off on the bailout...
...The National Right to Work Committee calculates that, thanks to the new program, "teacher union officials can expect to rake in up to $6o million in additional dues money per year...
...Republican leaders rarely deign to notice such hikes...
...The IMF is notorious for imposing "conditionality" on loan recipients and then continuing to disburse loans after a government betrays its reform promises...
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...Never mind the speaker's remarkable assumption that local school districts are incapable of boondoggles...
...Yet in the rush to leave town, the Senate confirmed longtime agency bureaucrat Jane Henney as the new chief of FDA...
...Congress also tossed $27 million to mohair, wool, and honey producers—even though it had abolished subsidies for these commodities in 1993...
...According to former FDA biotechnology director and Hoover Institution fellow Henry Miller, Henney "shamefully permitted the politicization of regulatory policies" and "collaboratedprominently in the disastrous government decisions that needlessly left millions of women fearful and confused and that destroyed the [silicone breast] implant industry...
...Yet in recent decades, school boards across the country have become mere fronts for bureaucracies and unions...
...84 December 1998 • The American Spectator bureaucrats, telling a Republican pep rally that "we said the local school board, because we believe it is American to have local people working with local teachers to have local children get an education under local control...
...But Congress had just finished spending over $20 billion of the supposed surplus on such "emergencies" as the long-anticipated extended occupation of Bosnia by U.S...
...Gingrich bragged in August that the Republican Congress had enacted legislation to reform the Food and Drug Administration with a bill passed earlier this year...
...And when a Republican himself brags how much he's grown and matured, he becomes a sure bet to win Bethell's Strange New Respect Award...
...He claims that the new money will come with no strings attached...
...House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Archer of Texas has declared such covert tax increases "akin to false advertising by the government...
...The IRS retains its "presumption of correctness" in all other dealings with taxpayers—which means that it will continue to send out millions of unjustified tax deficiency and penalty letters, and that Americans will continue to pay billions of unowed penalties and surcharges...
...The Senate rejected the House-passed cut and substituted a $9.8 billion cut—over nine years...
...But in the bill that Congress passed this spring, the burden of proof shifts only for court cases —a tiny fraction of the agency's disputes with taxpayers...
...The Congressional Budget Office predicts that the federal government will collect more than $1.3 trillion in excess of federal spending over the next five years...
...Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle called it "the biggest victory of all, and the one we are most proud of...
...One might have expected Republicans to pay more attention after the preceding FDA director, David Kessler, turned out to be both a regulatory fanatic and a political turncoat...
...L ast month TAS reviewed the fiasco of this year's multiple agricultural bailouts ("Freedom to Farm Washington"), in which farmers reaped nearly $15 billion in federal handouts right before election time...
...Few congressmen read much of the bill before voting on it, and perhaps the speaker himself lacked time to scrutinize the details of what he had helped produce...
...The speaker declared that "of the $71 billion [budget surplus], every penny will be put aside, actually to pay down the debt as a step toward saving Social Security...
...David Obey (D-Wisc...
...understand that we have to work together" with the Democrats, he insisted...
...Research overwhelmingly shows that marginal changes in class size mean no educational benefit to children...
...He also claims that not a cent will go to school You call this a budget that does the speaker proud...
...The new program would not endanger local freedom only if, miraculously, all future members of Congress and all political appointees lost all desire to use the power within their grasp...
...explained to his fellow members that dairy prices—now at record levels—could also fall in the future, so a $200-million dairy bailout was added in...
...During Congress's last week in session, the speaker seemed as out of touch with America as any of his Democratic predecessors...
...Gingrich also sought to portray the $18 billion allocated to the International Monetary Fund as a Republican victory—since Rep...
...And how can encouraging local school systems to rely on federal handouts not undermine their independence...
...Then Rep...
...Once again, fantasy trumps reality...
...Gingrich derided conservative critics of the agreement as "petty dictators" trying to impose their own agenda...
...This bailout could mean $2,000 checks for each of the nation's loo,000 largest dairy producers...
...The budget act also lavished over $10 billion in foreign aid on the usual suspects, including Egypt, Israel, and North Korea...
...How to grunt knowingly about obscure provisions in the tax code...
...Yet it is in the details that government power expands—and that Gingrich and other Republican leaders have betrayed their promises to voters...
...Grams voted against the bill —but most Republicans stampeded to the congressional leadership's victory party...
...Gingrich has defended the new spending: "We said the local school board would make the decision, no new federal bureaucracy, no new state bureaucracy, not a penny in the bill that was passed goes to pay for bureaucracy...
Vol. 31 • December 1998 • No. 12
