ROCKEFELLER V. REAGAN

Loss Leaders

After a season of disappointment, can the Republican Congress be salvaged?

Mr. Moore, an NR contributing editor, is director of fiscal policy studies at the Cato institute.

IF there is any silver lining in Tuesday's gloomy elections it is this: whatever congressional Republicans have been selling for the past two years, the voters have declared they don't much want it. One thing is certain: if the GOP spends the next two years offering up to voters the agenda of mush they did in 1997 and 1998, Nov. 5, 2000 will be a catastrophe.

The GOP's near-death experience now requires some soul searching for not just the party, but for the conservative movement. For thirty years conservatives -- from Goldwater, to Reagan, and yes to Gingrich -- labored mightily to build a Republican congressional majority. But it's time to ask: to what end? Conservatives may be responsible for the GOP's command of Congress, but they certainly in no way direct or control it. In fact, on a multitude of issues the Washington Republicans often show all the ideological impulses of Rockefeller, not Reagan.

Exhibit A: the 105th Congress. Most conservative ideas -- from ending quotas to cutting taxes -- were either ignored or trampled in the last Congress. Straight out of the gates in 1997, Republicans ratified a non-aggression budget pact with the Clinton White House. "Social Spending to Soar Under New Budget," is how a Washington Post headline described that deal. Members then dedicated the next 18 months to spend-and-re-elect politics.

The GOP counts as one of its "accomplishments" House Transportation Committee Chairman Bud Shuster's $217 billion highway bill, crammed with an unprecedented 1,850 white-elephant projects: bicycle paths, university research grants, hiking trails, auto museums, subways without passengers, and the like. "Democrats believe in wasting money on social programs," says one House Republican. "We believe in wasting it on cement."

Then there was the incomprehensibly inept budget-endgame strategy this October [see Kate O'Beirne], which produced an expensive retreat on almost every front. While Newt Gingrich was tongue-lashing "perfectionist" conservatives who dared to oppose the budget, the Republican National Committee was churning out press releases proudly proclaiming that the $1.1 billion payment for 100,000 new teachers was "originally our idea, not Clinton's." Where was the revolt of the conservatives? In the House of Representatives, a mere 64 Republicans (out of 228) voted no, and only 20 of 55 Republicans in the Senate did.

DEFENSIVE RATIONALIZATIONS
Republicans were more fiscally conservative when they were in the minority than they are today. Arguably, the most tightfisted Congress in a generation was not the Republican-controlled 104th or 105th, but the Democratic-controlled 103rd. Why? Because throughout 1993 and 1994 Republicans made the Left's life miserable by playing a ferocious fiscal defense that would have made Vince Lombardi proud. Now they make defensive rationalizations about the budget's being a conservative victory because it prevents federal funding of needle-exchange programs in the District of Columbia. To think that some poked fun at Ronald Reagan for looking for the pony in a pile of manure.

There is almost no difference in the rate of growth of social spending between the four years of Republican control of Congress and the prior four years of Democratic control. From 1991 to 1995, domestic outlays expanded by $74 billion (in 1998 dollars). Adjusted for inflation, from 1995 to 1999 domestic expenditures have expanded by $110 billion. If we properly account for all of the non-national-security spending stashed inside the Pentagon budget -- for breast-cancer research, corporate-welfare grants, etc. -- the domestic budget takes a larger slice of the GDP pie today than ever before. Since Republicans are always accusing critics of asking for the moon, let me make it clear: The problem is not that conservatives must settle for a strategy of incrementalism; it's that the incrementalism is going in the wrong direction.

Republican Senator John Ashcroft of Missouri pushed for substantial tax cuts in the GOP budget. Only four of the 54 other Republican senators joined his crusade-in an election year, no less. Confronted with a blizzard of tax payments, Republicans proceeded to enact a tax bill that actually raised Americans' taxes slightly and then allowed Clinton to spend a third of the budget surplus for whose sake taxes supposedly could not be cut. In 1994, federal taxes took up 19 per cent of GDP. Now they occupy 21 per cent. It would seem self-evident that with a Republican Congress, tax burdens should be going down. Instead, through GOP inaction, they are rising.

The federal budget is balanced because the tax burden is higher than at any time in 50 years and the defense budget is smaller than at any time in 50 years. "On budget issues, it really is getting harder than ever to tell the two parties apart," says Tim Penny, the fiscally conservative former Democratic congressman from Minnesota. "From my vantage point, congressional Republicans have become what they replaced."

To be sure, Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey have only a thin majority. But the problem today is not just that there is no conservative governing majority in Congress; it's that there is no conservative governing majority even inside the GOP.

Pundits love to highlight the Republican Party's fault lines -- the endless scuffles among various factions of the Republican base: cultural conservatives versus libertarians; supply-side tax-cutters versus balanced-budget hawks, and so on. But all of these skirmishes divert attention from the real fault-line: the divide between limited-government and big-government Republicans, the Reagans and the Rockefellers. Soon there will be another fight for the soul of the party-the Reaganites had better be ready.

And how can the party be remolded in Reagan's image? First, it's time to run and finance (a conservative Emily's List?) a full slate of conservative-libertarian primary challengers against big-government Republicans. Today, there are scores of Republicans in Congress -- the two Utah senators come to mind -- who are far to the left of their constituents. This past year, not a single Republican incumbent lost in a primary or was even seriously challenged. Giving a free ride to incumbents who routinely defect from the smaller-government agenda is a reward for bad behavior. The model should be Charles Gerow's 1996 primary race against then-ten-term Rep. Bill Goodling in Pennsylvania.

Goodling, the moderate chairman of the education committee, prevailed, but has been noticeably more receptive to conservative arguments ever since. Then there are term limits. Many conservatives believed that with the GOP in command of both houses, running career politicians out of Washington was no longer necessary. A new Cato Institute study by Aaron Steelman demonstrates otherwise. Steelman shows that in 27 of 31 key votes during the 104th and 105th Congresses, junior Republicans (those with six years or fewer in the House or 12 years or fewer in the Senate) were much likelier to vote for fiscal restraint than were senior Republicans.

Conservative activists should push Congress toward "de facto" term limits. The idea would be to make life miserable for those who remain in Congress past their "limit." The system of seniority would be replaced with a system of reverse seniority. No one would be permitted to hold a committee chair or a leadership position after six years in the House or two terms in the Senate. The congressional pension would also be immediately ended.

Finally, there are now three litmus-test economic-policy issues that neatly separate the Reagans from the Rockefellers: dramatic tax reduction and simplification, school choice, and Social Security privatization. Each is a populist issue with common themes -- empowering individuals, ensuring long-term economic growth, and dividing the political coalitions of the Left. As with welfare reform, the time is ripe for these next assaults against the welfare state. The 105th Congress cautiously advanced on school choice and decided to "wait till next year" on tax cuts and Social Security reform. If the 106th does the same, conservative patience with the GOP should be finally exhausted.

During the budget surrender last month, a GOP activist complained to me: "Whatever happened to the Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not criticize a fellow Republican?" Now there's one part of the Reagan legacy that deserves to be abandoned.