The Gop Congress Pro Is The Gop Congress On The Right Track In Trying To Change The Country’s Direction? Or Is It Pandering To Business Special Interests At The Expense Of The Poor?
In the first two years of the Clinton administration, the president found it hard to get things done even with Congress in the hands of his own party. In the second two years of the Clinton presidency, Republican strategist Bill Kristol predicts, the president will sign more legislation than he did in the first two years.
The president had difficulty implementing his agenda in the first half of his administration because his proposals were out of phase with the voters’ beliefs. There were always just enough Democrats who agreed with the Republicans about this to make every Clinton initiative a cliffhanger.
Republicans, attempting to implement their own agenda, face a somewhat different problem now. They are in phase with the electorate but must fight the steady head wind that is generated by the national press.
The battles over school lunches and welfare cuts have been illustrative.
The press has served as an echo chamber for Democratic charges about “cruelty” and “mean-spiritedness.” Many news organizations have accepted at face value the claim, repeated by President Clinton, that Republicans are trying to gut the school lunch program.
Now, serious people - for example, Karl Zinsmeister, editor of American Enterprise magazine - make a strong case for doing just that. He argues that if a parent abdicates the most basic task of parenting - feeding his child - to the state, that contributes, subtly but importantly, to the erosion of parental responsibility. The school breakfast and lunch programs have encouraged the idea that parents are not required to make sure their children are fed adequately.
And what if kids come to school hungry (which would not be the result of poverty because every child who gets a free lunch at school also is getting food stamps)? Zinsmeister is not afraid to say it: That is prima facie evidence of parental neglect - and unless the parent can make a convincing case otherwise, the child should be removed from the home and given to people capable of providing good care.
But Republicans were not recommending anything as bold as ending the school lunch program. They weren’t even proposing my preferred outcome - to remove non-poor children from the beneficiary list (which would reduce the cost of the program drastically). No, the Republicans merely were suggesting a slightly slower rate of increase in spending than congressional Democrats would have preferred - 4.5 percent a year rather than 5.2 percent. Clinton’s budget projects growth of just 3.6 percent in the school lunch program in 1996.
And yet, the Democrats scored a public-relations bull’s eye with their extreme rhetoric and bogus numbers. The story the major media wanted to cover, the story that fit everyone’s preconceptions, was: “Cruel Republicans Wield Budget Ax at Most Vulnerable.” So, when House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, took to the House radio and television gallery to deliver the GOP’s explanation of the school lunch program changes, his comments never made the air.
Not only does the media megaphone amplify each and every accusation made by the Democrats, but it also has the power to declare what is and what is not a scandal.
Armey was forced to run a gantlet of media fury after his slip of tongue regarding Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass. When House Speaker Newt Gingrich stubs his toe, he’s accused of kicking the cat.
But when Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., took to the House floor to condemn the Republicans’ welfare reform proposal and chose to compare it with Nazi atrocities, it is not a scandal. It doesn’t even make the evening news.
The Republican Congress was elected to change the direction of the country. If the Republicans want to stay in touch with the voters, they are best advised to turn off the TV set and ignore the newspapers - because the hot air that emanates from there will blow them off course.
xxxx For the opposing view, see the story under the headline: The GOP Congress Con Is the GOP Congress on the right track in trying to change the country’s direction? Or is it pandering to business special interests at the expense of the poor?