Maximum Meltdown
BARNES, FRED
Maximum Meltdown by Fred Barnes THE AFL-CIO SPENT LESS THAN $1 million on TV ads over the Easter congressional recess to attack two dozen House Republicans for opposing a hike in the minimum...
...There's worse...
...It's an anomaly, Gingrich suggested...
...Meanwhile, a majority supporting a hike emerged in the Senate, too...
...I'll commit suicide before I vote on a clean minimum-wage bill," says Boehner...
...This spring, he doesn't have the clout-or the energy-to enforce party unity in opposition to the minimum wage...
...Since we know that a minimum-wage increase kills jobs, there ought to be a package that includes other things that create more jobs to make up," he told reporters...
...On the contrary, a Republican pollster conducted focus groups of swing voters and found they laughed at the notion an increase in the minimum wage would ease the middle-class squeeze...
...So is John Boehner, head of the House Republican Conference...
...And this is happening despite the absence of a public clamor on the issue...
...Republicans have lost their ideological self-confidence...
...Democrats thought so little of the issue as a crowd-pleaser they never brought it up in 1993 and 1994 when they controlled both the White House and Congress...
...The member under attack, the ad said, "should start voting for America's families...
...And when the meeting reconvened after a floor vote, Gingrich didn't show up...
...What's amazing about House and Senate Republicans is how few are willing, in a conservative era, to make the economic and social case against a minimum-wage hike...
...Nothing was decided...
...But labor-fomented trouble for the GOP may continue...
...In any event, Dole's strategy of using his Senate post to carry out his presidential campaign has once again proved to be a loser...
...In 1995, they believed fervently in their conservative agenda...
...The ads were simple: Each GOP House member had "voted to block a minimum wage increase after he voted to cut Medicare, cut college loans, all to give a tax break to the rich...
...A meltdown," a business lobbyist calls it, "the politics of fear...
...I'm getting killed on this," he told an associate...
...Gingrich would like to shield Dole from political trouble, but he hasn't figured out how...
...He has, however, created a split with other House Republican leaders, especially Majority Leader Dick Armey...
...They dismissed Democratic criticism as feckless...
...Thus, as many as one-third of the 74 House GOP freshmen may vote to raise the minimum wage...
...Even if some of their stands were unpopular-Medicare, college loans, school lunches-most Republicans were convinced they were right...
...Dole tried to sidetrack Senate Democrats who are pushing for a raise...
...He sent a memo reminding House members that both President Clinton and Joseph Stiglitz, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, opposed a hike as recently as 1993...
...But when Bill Thomas of California, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said he didn't have the jurisdiction to hold hearings, Gingrich was silent...
...This demagogic pitch produced a touch of panic among a pivotal smattering of congressmen...
...Last year, Gingrich held Republicans together on tough conservative votes to slow the growth of Medicare and Medicaid, slash social spending, and curb environmental regulation...
...But GOP wavering doesn't seem anomalous at all these days...
...Even normally unwavering conservatives like Frank Cremeans of Ohio wavered...
...To Armey's surprise, Gingrich said on April 18 that a minimum-wage bill, with amendments, might be voted on in the House...
...Neither House Speaker Newt Gingrich nor Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole could control his troops...
...Anxious conservatives and Republican moderates, combined with nearly every Democrat, tipped the balance in the House in favor of boosting the $4.25-per-hour minimum wage by as much as a dollar an hour...
...Later, at a meeting of Gingrich's "union project," he and others discussed ways to thwart labor's anti-GOP efforts and publicize labor-union corruption...
...But after Armey and Boehner, the ranks thin...
...But losing the budget showdown with President Clinton shook their resolve...
...On April 17, he sent Republicans a letter that argues, correctly, that a minimum-wage increase "will only increase the number of non-working Americans by destroying crucial, entry-level jobs...
...Armey is...
...All he can do now is attach amendments to a minimum-wage bill he says "the Democrats might not be so crazy about" and organized labor would abhor...
...But a procedural error left him in the vulnerable position of having to fight off minimum-wage amendments on every bill...
...At best, Republicans will be able to delay a vote on the matter, then add conservative amendments...
...But their collapse on the minimum wage means Democrats, with liberals and labor in the lead, are now on offense...
...As recently as March, they controlled the agenda in the House, passing modest health-insurance reform and a line-item veto and reaching agreement on product-liability changes...
...With roughly eight Republicans in favor of increasing the minimum wage, Dole lacks a majority...
...The money the AFL-CIO spent on TV ads "is only the tip of the iceberg of the $35 million" that's been targeted on House Republicans, lobbyist Mark Isakowitz of the National Federation of Independent Business reminded Gingrich on April 18...
...Maximum Meltdown by Fred Barnes THE AFL-CIO SPENT LESS THAN $1 million on TV ads over the Easter congressional recess to attack two dozen House Republicans for opposing a hike in the minimum wage-and the labor chiefs got their money's worth...
...Thus, they'd have to oppose it...
...Now, facing reelection in November and with no agenda of their own to promote, several dozen of them have grown fearful that tired, old Democratic issues will hurt them...
...This was a disaster for Republicans in more ways than one...
...Gingrich responded that boosting the minimum wage is labor's most popular issue...
Vol. 1 • April 1996 • No. 32
