Image Gambit A Crass Sellout Of Beliefs
President Clinton, the master of illusion, won it all last Tuesday on the South Lawn of the White House. He had Speaker Newt Gingrich and his neutered Republican colleagues exactly where he wanted them - on his territory and pretty much on his terms. In a contest of image over substance, no one does it better than Bill Clinton.
The Speaker even praised the president for his leadership when, in fact, the president in his first term retroactively raised taxes, tried to dramatically increase spending (remember the “stimulus package”?) and attempted to create national health care, which he and Hillary are now doing in stages rather than all at once.
It appeared to be the celebration of a military triumph, as politicians marched around the White House grounds like soldiers on parade. But it was all illusion, defined as “the state or fact of being intellectually deceived or misled; perception of something objectively existing in such a way as to cause misinterpretation of its actual nature.”
The real test for Republicans is what happens to the party’s approval ratings. Pollsters told Republicans that the public doesn’t like them because they seem too rigid, uncaring and partisan. The Speaker repeatedly used the word “bipartisan” in his remarks. So, having swallowed hard and accepted new entitlement programs that are bound to grow in size and cost just to produce a harmonious photo opportunity (with about as much substance as a Yasser Arafat handshake with Israeli leaders in the same location), they hope approval ratings will go up. But they won’t.
That’s because the fundamental issues have not been settled. Is government our primary keeper, or are we? Should government be a first resource, dispensing goodies to fulfill our every desire, or should it encourage us to make good life decisions and remove incentives to laziness that subsidize wrong choices?
The main flaw in the budget agreement is that it fails to address what caused the deficit and huge national debt in the first place.
It wasn’t Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts, as liberal critics like to say. In fact, the same “supply side economics” Democrats once condemned - lower taxes and low interest rates increase tax revenue as overall income goes up - is now praised as the primary contributor to deficit reduction.
The cause was the spirit of “entitlement” - that I have a right to other people’s money. The nation began with the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Now, it creates new “rights” (and removes old ones) by fiat. Anyone who suggests the Constitution does not provide such rights is labeled uncaring, an ideologue and a hater of children and the elderly.
Reagan repeatedly noted that we have a deficit not because citizens are taxed too little but because government spends too much. While a few gimmicks are offered the overburdened taxpayers (like the “child credit”), the budget will balance only if the new entitlement programs are held in check (good luck) and the economy continues to grow at its present rate.
Writing in The Wall Street Journal, author John Steele Gordon says that five-year economic forecasts “have as much accuracy as long-term weather forecasts.” The problem, notes Gordon, is that Congress spends other people’s money. If the members spent their own money the way they spend ours, they would have been bankrupt long ago. During a period of peace and prosperity, our national debt has risen 11 times what it was when the Budget Control Act became law 23 years ago.
Where does the party that preached fiscal restraint, tax cuts, reduced spending and personal responsibility go from here? Having lost the battle of the polls and nearly its congressional majority in the last election, are Republicans going to play the illusion game through the next election cycle, hoping to trade on an era of “good feelings” among soccer moms? After the 1998 election, will traditional Republican ideas resurface as they search for a presidential candidate with leadership skills and real convictions who is not afraid of being called names by the sustainers of the welfare state?
The politicians did what they thought the public wanted - making nice for the cameras. But making nice makes for poor policy.
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