The Republican Revolution 10 Years Later: Smaller Government Or Business As Usual? - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1930865694 ISBN 13: 9781930865693

Publisher: Cato Inst, 2005

Synopsis

To mark the 10th anniversary, 18 experts—including two key leaders of the Republican revolution, Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey—rexamine the successes and failures of the Republican revolution.

About this title

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

THE REPUBLICAN REVOLUTION 10 YEARS LATER

Smaller Government or Business as Usual?

CATO INSTITUTE

Copyright © 2005 Cato Institute
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-930865-69-3

Contents

Introduction Chris Edwards and John Samples...............................................................................vii1. The GOP Revolution Holds Powerful Lessons for Changing Washington Newt Gingrich........................................12. Reflections on the Republican Revolution Richard Armey.................................................................53. The Republican Congress in Historical Context Edward H. Crane..........................................................174. Same as the Old Boss? Congressional Reforms under the Republicans John Samples.........................................235. Social Policy, Supply-Side, and Fundamental Reform: Republican Tax Policy, 1994-2004 Chris Edwards.....................376. The Federal Budget 10 Years Later: The Triumph of Big Government Stephen Moore.........................................597. A Decade of Republican Trade Policy: A Modest Record of Accomplishment Daniel Griswold.................................738. The Long, Winding Road to Social Security Reform Michael Tanner........................................................919. Welfare Reform: The Biggest Accomplishment of the Revolution Ron Haskins...............................................9910. Health Care: The Revolution's Mitigated Disaster Michael F. Cannon....................................................14111. Federal Education Policy in the GOP Congress David Salisbury..........................................................15712. The Nonrevolution In Telecommunications And Technology Policy Adam D. Thierer.........................................16913. The Revolution Spins Toward More Regulation Clyde Wayne Crews Jr......................................................19514. The GOP'S Environmental Record Jerry Taylor...........................................................................20515. A Smooth Transition: Crime, Federalism, and the GOP Timothy Lynch.....................................................21316. The Road Not Taken: The Republican National Security Strategy Christopher Preble......................................223Contributors...............................................................................................................239Index......................................................................................................................241

Chapter One

The GOP Revolution Holds Powerful Lessons for Changing Washington

Newt Gingrich

I see the 1994 Republican victory as part three of a long process. Part one includes Barry Goldwater's 1960 book, Conscience of a Conservative, and the Goldwater movement that took control of the Republican Party in 1964. Part two was Ronald Reagan's rise from the 1964 film A Time for Choosing through his presidency. Part three was the election of 1994.

I came to Washington in the middle of this process in 1978 and proposed the then radical idea that the Republicans could become the majority in Congress. It took the GOP 16 years. Thus, if you want to get big things done in Washington but say you only have a weekend, you will not be successful.

Hard Work over a Long Period of Time

Our victory in 1994 was a product not only of conservative theory, but also of brutally hard work over a very long period of time. The work put into the Contract with America was central to our success. The Contract focused our candidates, whose otherwise natural tendency was to attack President Bill Clinton. But we knew that if we were negative, if we were the anti-Clinton party, all the Ross Perot voters would stay home.

The Contract gave relatively untested candidates powerful issues to cling to in the last 40 days of the campaign. The phrases "I am for a balanced budget; I am for a tax cut; I am for a stronger military; I am for welfare reform" were a shield with which our candidates could surround themselves, keeping them out of trouble and on message. Some of the historic personal efforts that led to victory included Dick Armey's work to build a consensus within the party on the Contract and Bill Paxon's and Joe Gaylord's work on the training and planning side of the 1994 campaign.

Change on the scale of 1994 required major teamwork and organization. The most important single event in the lead-up to 1994 was a dinner where Tom DeLay, Bob Walker, Dick Armey, Bill Paxon, and I agreed to put our differences aside and work together. If that team had not existed, we would not have had the energy to win control of the House.

To understand the role of teamwork and organization for the success in 1994, you have to go back and look at the role of GOPAC (a training organization for Republican candidates), from when Pete DuPont founded it, to when Bo Callaway chaired it, through when Gay Gaines took over. You have to look at the role of the Conservative Opportunity Society, which Vin Weber, Duncan Hunter, Bob Walker, Connie Mack, and others helped create. You have to look at the role of the Key Leader Team that grew up late in the cycle, thanks to the efforts of Dick Armey.

Florence Weston's The Presidential Election of 1828, which was required reading for everyone in those organizations, points out that to seize power from the establishment, the Jacksonians had to organize on such a scale that they simply drowned out the old order. If you look at what we did with GOPAC, what we did with Haley Barbour at the Republican National Committee, and what we tried to do inside the House, you'll see a very similar pattern that continued for about a decade.

Working outside the Republican Establishment

Throughout a long process of hard work and intense opposition, we developed a mantra that became essential to our success: cheerful persistence. We were a minority inside a minority. All our work was done against the active, continuing opposition of the traditional party. From the time I was sworn in through winning the race to become House Whip in 1989, the GOP establishment was opposed to what we were doing. They branded us radicals because we actually thought we could become a majority, were willing to fight for that goal, and proudly used the word "conservative." So not only were we being beaten up by the Democrats and ignored by the news media, we were being pressured by senior Republicans.

While training our new members in this period of tension, we discovered two things. First, to get anything done you must be persistent. Second, if you want people to work with you, you must be cheerful. When Joe Barton arrived on the scene, the first thing he was told by the leader of the Texas delegation was never to work with the Conservative Opportunity Society. He smiled and replied, "Gee, the reason I came was to work with COS." And he did. Cheerful persistence won the day.

We also realized that in order to gain control, we had to build new coalitions and develop consensus. In addition to Weston's book, Norman H. Nie's The Changing American Voter was required reading for all of us who sought to gain a majority. The book argues that the way you get new majorities is to arouse a base that is not used to voting. People who dismiss our victory as a fluke do not study our base very often, but we had nine million additional votes in 1994, the largest one-party increase in American history. There is a huge pool of uncommitted voters who have no interest in politics. Thus, when campaigns are able to mobilize such groups, they win in a big way. For a more recent example, look at California-Republicans Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tom McClintock garnered 61 percent in the recall race for governor. They swept counties that people figured that Republicans could not win because people said, "I am sick and tired, I am fed up, and I want a change."

We also developed a model-"Listen, Learn, Help, Lead"-that helped us build a consensus within the Republican Party about the Contract. It was essential that the Contract be a consultative process. In America, we do not have a Tory central party office as in Britain; we do not name candidates. We had to listen to and learn from our candidates so that we could develop a document they would sign. Without Dick Armey's extraordinary leadership, along with the work done by Kerry Knott, Ed Gillespie, and the team Dick assembled, we could not have done that.

Contract with America

People undervalue the truly radical nature of the Contract with America. The Contract was much more than a platform. A platform says that we are for these things; the Contract said that we will vote on these things. The American people had seen platforms before; we wanted to give them something that felt different. We wanted to give them something so they said, "Wow, you are actually going to do this?" We had zero interest in electing a congressional majority that behaved like a normal Congress; our interest was in dramatically changing Washington.

Changing Washington

We did change Washington. In 1996 we reformed welfare, which over time caused a 60 percent reduction in the welfare rolls. We passed the first tax cut in 17 years against a liberal Democratic president with the power of veto. We had the first decline in spending since 1981 and only the second decline in domestic spending since World War II.

In addition, the Contract with America set the stage for an even bigger victory-the 1996 election. House Republicans had not maintained a majority since 1928, and 1996 was the first time in history they did so against a Democratic incumbent. We ran ahead of Bob Dole and Ross Perot combined that year and it was that victory, not 1994, that spurred me to get a balanced-budget agreement-an action I viewed as key to keeping our long-term commitments.

So transformation is possible, but it is a long, hard process. Today, those who seek to transform Washington should look for guidance at how we won in 1994.

Chapter Two

Reflections on the Republican Revolution

Richard Armey

Ten years ago, Republicans staged a remarkable upset and gained control of Congress during the 1994 elections. Armed with a vision of limited government and individual freedom, Republicans won a majority in the Senate for the first time since 1986 and a majority in the House for the first time since 1954. Republican power was consolidated further in 2000, with President Bush's winning the White House.

Many now view the Republican takeover as having little effect on the size and scope of the federal government. Congress continues to spend at a record pace while federal regulators are expanding the reach of government into the private sector. In light of those trends, what have the Republicans accomplished?

I believe that the Republicans have made a difference, particularly when they have relied on the principles of lower taxes, less government, and more freedom. Important achievements, such as welfare reform, have had a positive effect on the lives of millions of Americans.

Unfortunately, the principles of less government and more freedom do not always drive the political debate. For example, the budget and appropriations processes tend to bias outcomes toward more spending, and there are glaring examples of costly new federal programs, such as the new prescription drug benefit for Medicare. No one spends someone else's money as wisely as they spend their own, and to the extent that Congress focuses on spending more money, taxpayers will bear the burden-regardless of who is in office.

Just as important as the Republican revolution that took place in Washington, grass-roots activism and old-fashioned "shoe-leather politics" are vital components in the pursuit of limited government. The Contract with America was the driving force behind the Republican rise to power because it connected Republican members with grass-roots activists. It provided a clear blueprint for the tenets of limited government, such as easing the tax burden and protecting private property rights. The message resonated with the public and generated the grass-roots support necessary to make a difference in the voting booth. Engaging and mobilizing average people is a critical component for future success at limiting government. Politics and bureaucracy can overwhelm supporters of limited government in Congress, but a dedicated base of grass-roots activists can remind politicians of why they were sent to Washington in the first place.

The Contract with America: The Revolution's Defining Document

The Contract with America was an extraordinary moment in American political history that demonstrated the importance of policy over politics. In fact, there is no better example of Armey's Axiom, "When we're like us we win; when we're like them we lose." The Contract was a defining document of limited government that garnered enough support to topple Democratic rule in Congress. Before the Republican takeover, Democrats had controlled the House for 40 years. In January 1995, when Republicans were sworn in, only one member of Congress had ever seen a Republican majority: Sid Yates, a Democrat who was over 80 years old. The only Republican who had ever seen a Republican majority was a member from Missouri who had been in Washington as a page.

A major reason why it had taken so long to overcome the chronic majority status of the Democrats was that Republicans had spent much of the previous 40 years becoming more and more like the Democrats. It reached the point where one ranking Republican on a committee was described in the Wall Street Journal as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democratic chairman. Even more disconcerting, nobody in the ranks of the Republican leadership was concerned or offended by the comment. Some of the young Turks (myself included) who were a constant source of embarrassment to the old guard objected, but the fact of the matter was that Republicans were content to be like Democrats and just get along in peace. That fact raises another of Armey's Axioms, "If you love peace more than freedom, you lose." Before the 1995 takeover, Republicans loved peace more than freedom, and they were losing.

Ultimately, Republicans did band together to challenge the Democratic majority, which was feasible only because of the unique circumstances of the time. When President Bill Clinton was elected in 1992 and Democrats were in charge of the whole town, they overreached drastically, with the most notable example being the Clinton health care plan. As the new administration began proposing policies more radical than the median voter was willing to accept, opportunities emerged to challenge the status quo.

A true struggle emerged in the Republican ranks. When Newt Gingrich was elected Whip, and subsequently I was elected to leadership, things grew uncomfortable for the old guard of the GOP. The most significant change was the retirement of leader Bob Michel (R-Ill.), which led to new leadership whose distinct mission was to change the direction of the Republican Party.

Those changes were embodied in the Contract with America, which gained traction because of the excesses, abuses, and corruptions of the Democratic majority. The Contract consisted of 10 issues that were widely popular with the public that Democrats would not allow to come to a vote. Had they not been so arrogant, we could not have written the Contract.

The Contract was a unique political moment and political instrument. I have never seen before or since every single Republican candidate on the same song page. Some senators were reluctant to embrace our agenda, but the momentum for change was great. Indeed, even some House members were skeptical but went along with the Contract. In the end, all but one Republican candidate for the House-incumbent or challenger-signed the Contract, largely because they all felt they had been part of the process. That was really an unusual feat.

Leadership vs. the Status Quo

On the strength and popularity of the Contract, Republicans won the majority. But it is important to understand that, even at that moment in 1995 when Republicans gained the majority for the first time in 40 years, it was not a majority of small-government conservatives; they were still a minority within the party. Setting party affiliations aside, the majority, composed of Democrats and moderate Republicans, still favored bigger government. For this group, it was business as usual, handing out perks and spending on pork. In fact, government would have grown were it not for the leadership's ability to exert a message of smaller government.

In retrospect, Republicans did some remarkable things in the short period after the election. One reason they were able to do so was that many Republican members were happy to be in the new majority and were much aware of the fact that the leadership had created this opportunity. Every new Republican chairman was someone who had previously been resigned to being a member of a permanent minority. Winning the majority generated an intense sense of appreciation and loyalty, and a willingness to work with the leadership that was the source of this extraordinary opportunity. Yet, as Republicans became comfortable with being in the majority, this cohesiveness began to fade, giving way to politics as usual and expanding government.

Early on, however, we were able to make remarkable strides. We were duty bound to do exactly what the Contract said in the first 100 days. That meant for the first 100 days leadership, not committee chairmen responding to interest groups, defined the entire agenda of the House. This change was important because it provided an opportunity to challenge-at least in the short run-the influence of special interests that drive the agenda at the committee level. Committees, which deal with a limited range of issues, have a parochial view driven by policy concerns. Leadership, in contrast, has a broader view that must balance the interests of competing committees and the legislative body as a whole. The deference to leadership on the part of the chairmen provided an opportunity for change. We established a pattern of the leadership setting policy goals, which gave us the ability to hold our conservative, small-government agenda together and get members to work with it.

The first 100 days were remarkable. The House passed a wide range of reforms, including tax cuts, a balanced-budget amendment, and civil justice reforms. It became more difficult moving legislation from the House to the Senate, working to encourage the Senate to act, coordinating the Senate and the House efforts, and negotiating with the president to get legislation signed into law. As time passed reform got harder, as we learned that Congress was not a world of small-government conservatives. Committee chairmen became more adept and comfortable in their roles and no longer felt so lucky to be chairmen. In fact, some chairmen developed the attitude that the party was fortunate to have them.

(Continues...)

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Edition details

• Publisher: Cato Inst
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1930865694
• ISBN 13: 9781930865693
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 256
• Editor: Edwards Chris, Samples John