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Democratic Tweedledum Plan
by Donald Devine
 “A
New Direction for America,” the House Democrat plan, is a remarkable
document. It is the Dems 2006 version of the old GOP “Contract with
America.” What strikes the reader is that most of it is so Tweedledum
it could have been lifted directly from the George W. Bush White House
or Republican Party web sites.
The Democratic statement on the budget is even arguably better.
Our federal budget should be a statement of our national values. One of
those values is responsibility. Democrats are committed to ending years
of irresponsible budget policies that have produced historic deficits.
Instead of piling trillions of dollars of debt onto our children and
grandchildren, we will restore “Pay As You Go” budget discipline.
Congress under Republican control has turned a projected $5.6 trillion
10-year surplus at the end of the Clinton years into a nearly $3
trillion deficit– including the four worst deficits in the history of
America. The nation’s debt ceiling has been raised four times in just
five years to more than $8.9 trillion. Nearly half of our nation’s
record debt is owned by foreign countries including China and Japan.
We are committed to auditing the books and subjecting every facet of
federal spending to tough budget discipline and accountability, forcing
the Congress to choose a new direction and the right priorities for all
Americans.
 It
is incredible that the Democrats ran to the right of the Republicans on
fiscal responsibility in the last election. “Pay as you go” probably
hides a hope for tax increases but it is significant that none is
listed in their plan. As far as spending, the House Democrats are
correct that non-defense, non-security spending under President Bush
has been almost double that under Bill Clinton, with the largest
percentage increases since Lyndon Johnson and Franklin Roosevelt.
Entitlement spending exploded, including the first new program since
the Great Society, the Medicare prescription drug plan. That one
program increased red ink by one hundred and fifty percent the total
unfunded obligation of Social Security.
The
Democrats even promise to reform this drug plan to reduce its costs.
They proposed to do so by allowing Medicare officials to “negotiate”
drug prices with pharmaceutical companies and Medicare drug plans. Of
course, they are really proposing not negotiation but
government-dictated lower prices that are disguised price controls that
will ultimately lead to drug shortages and rationing as they have in
the foreign countries that have adopted them. The Democrats did not
propose a rational solution but they at least grasp that the costs are
unsustainable over time. By contrast, Republicans planned to stay the
untenable entitlement course they themselves greatly worsened during
their years of Congressional control.
Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi and her pals’ solution for health care
is to “provide universal, affordable access to health insurance,
beginning with a 50 percent tax credit and multi-insurer pools to help
small businesses provide affordable and comprehensive health care
coverage for their employees.” While “beginning with” should be
cautionary, credits are at least part of the solution favored by many
conservative think tanks. Of course, Social Security is untouchable but
it is for Republicans too. The Democrats do propose private
supplemental retirement programs as in “existing retirement accounts,
such as 401(k)s and IRAs,” which historically have been part of the GOP
solution.
While the Democrats have developed a
greater appreciation for the market in their 2006 plan, they have not
been able to transcend their old New Deal belief that with enough
government planning the “defects” of the market can be corrected. On
the other hand, neither can most Congressional Republicans these days.
The Democratic solutions do sound incredibly bureaucratic. They
propose:
- doubling
funding for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) and the
Advanced Technology Program (ATP), modernizing the Small Business
Innovation Research Program (SBIR), and fully funding SBA 7(a) loans to
ensure that American small businesses have the resources and technical
assistance they need to successfully innovate,
-
creating an initiative to provide seed to develop high-risk,
high-reward technologies and of revolutionary energy technologies, such
as those nanotechnology, solar, and fuel cell research,
-
creat[ing] regional Centers of Excellence for basic research that will
attract the best minds and top researchers to develop far-reaching
technological innovations and new industries, and modernize existing
federal and academic research facilities, [and]
-
Moderniz[ing] and permanently extend a globally competitive research
and development (R&D) tax credit to increase domestic investment,
create more U.S. jobs, and allow companies to pursue long-term projects
with the certainty that the credit will not expire.
 But
notice that all of these have their roots either in Republican
Congresses or were retained by them from Bill Clinton’s “triangulation”
programs. Both parties have accepted his solution of throwing small
doses of dollars at big problems to show government is “doing
something” without causing too much economic harm (or doing much good).
The Democrats at least propose to amend the burdensome securities
requirements implemented under a Republican Congress to “require
specifically-tailored guidelines for small public companies to ensure
Sarbanes-Oxley requirements are not overly burdensome” on small
businesses.
Sure, Democrats will do some
economically irrational things, such as increasing the minimum wage,
but at the end of the last Congress the GOP House passed a bill to do
the same. The day after the election President Bush announced he is
ready to sign on too. Democrats will offer a big “ New Direction”
greatly increasing funding for college tuition, to “slash interest
rates on college loans in half to 3.4% for students and to 4.25% for
parents – saving the average student borrower $5,600, dramatically
increase the tax deductibility of college tuition by simplifying the
maze of tuition laws to allow a 100% tax credit for tuition up to
$3,000 – the equivalent of a $12,000 deduction for most middle-class
families, and increase the maximum Pell Grant to $5,100, giving more
than a quarter of a million additional young people the opportunity to
pursue a college degree.” Since Republicans adopted President Bush’s
big new “no child” plan for grade schools, increasing federal education
spending by 99 percent, and favored extending it to high schools, there
is little reason to assume the GOP will not extend it to college also,
although it is not clear either are willing to pay for it.
The only real objection President Bush would have with the House
Democratic plan would be its proposal for 2006 to become a “year of
significant transition” for reducing the U.S. military presence in
Iraq. But the results of the election have made Republicans in Congress
more open to such a proposal too. Pollster Whit Ayres has created a
chart showing the correlation between dissatisfaction about Iraq and
political dissatisfaction generally, and the case is overwhelming that
Iraq had a great deal to do with the GOP defeat in 2006. This is also
confirmed by the exit polls. The fact that President Bush’s first act
after the election was to fire his defense secretary suggests he has
come to a similar conclusion. The president's decision followed by only
one hour Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s hint that firing Donald Rumsfeld was
the way the president should signal that he is ready to deal on Iraq.
Sources:
The Gallup Poll (Mar 03-Mar 06), TNS (May-Jun 06), ABC (Aug-Oct 06),
and CNN (Nov 06). Source (Dissatisfaction): The Gallup Poll
The
one radical change would come if Democrats actually follow through on
their proposal to open up House procedures. “Bills should be developed
following full hearings and open subcommittee and committee markups,
with appropriate referrals to other committees. Members should have at
least 24 hours to examine a bill prior to consideration at the
subcommittee level. Bills should generally come to the floor under a
procedure that allows open, full, and fair debate consisting of a full
amendment process that grants the Minority the right to offer its
alternatives, including a substitute.” Obviously, Republicans now
agree. Democrats are now not so sure.
 Democratic
tendencies to excesses will also be controlled by public opinion. All
eight state referenda against government use of eminent domain to take
private property for public use were adopted. Seven of eight state
referenda defining marriage as between one man and one woman passed.
The Michigan referendum against racial preferences passed. Some
environmental and minimum wage and one stem cell proposal were adopted
but they do not change the basic reality of a basically conservative
electorate that is suspicious of big government, as demonstrated by a
McLoughlin poll.
Indeed, the major strategists
of Democratic victory, Representative Rahm Emanuel and Senator Chuck
Schumer, both recognized that conservative candidates were essential to
create their new majority. Emanuel recruited a dozen social
conservatives, including former football star, Heath Shuler in North
Carolina. Supporting former Reagan Navy secretary and war hero James
Webb in the primary against a popular liberal was essential to winning
the Senate and demonstrates how the Democrats will be constrained in
the upper house too.
One must conclude that
things will not be much different under Democratic Congressional
control. In his first post-election news conference, President Bush
signaled he will cooperate with the other party, a system he was
comfortable with when he was governor of Texas. He will try to trade
giving Congress more control of domestic matters in return for his
retaining foreign and defense authority. Even here, cross-party
interests coincide since the Democrats will want the president to be
perceived as in charge of Iraq, Afghanistan and the rest in the hopes
he and his party will get any blame in 2008.
Even if Democrats achieve all they promise in “New Direction,” it will
look pretty much like it has under the last three presidents. The
Tweedledee and Tweedledum pragmatic progressives controlling both
parties will continue to play their political games as the country
comes closer and closer to the bankruptcy of entitlements that
threatens the very well-being and even security of the nation. Since
not much will change for the next two years, conservatives have the
luxury to look beyond short-term gamesmanship and prepare for the real
problems the country will face after the 2008 election.
Donald Devine, the editor of Conservative Battleline Online, was the
director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management from 1981 to 1985
and is the director of the Federalist Leadership Center at Bellevue
University.
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