GOP Promises Vs. Practices. Gregory Freeman, P-D 11/19/1995

Headline: GOP PROMISES VS. PRACTICES
Reporter: By Gregory Freeman

Publication: ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Last Printed: Sun., Nov. 19, 1995
Section: WAR PAGE, Page: 4B, Edition: FIVE STAR LIFT

THE "revolution" is over.
Newt Gingrich was hoping to be the Emiliano Zapata of a congressional army of Republican hard-liners. This group was going to come in and change America once and for all. Out would go pork-barrel deals that cost Americans billions of dollars a year. In would come a sensible government that would be fair and responsible. That was the talk they talked. It's a different story when you look at the walk they've walked.
Time magazine last week documented case after case where right-wing congressmen came into office last year and did exactly what they said they wouldn't: They brought the pork home to their districts.

Congressmen such as Mark Neumann of Wisconsin. Neumann, who painted himself as a reformer during last year's campaign, was quick to make sure that the defense spending bill this year prevented any company that used foreign parts from bidding on generators for certain Navy submarines. That move gave Coltec Industries, which happens to be in his district, an edge over lower-priced competitors and riled the Navy, which said the new regulation would mean more expensive and less effective submarines.
   Or others, such as Congressmen Jim Bunn and Wes Cooley, both of Oregon. They refused to go along with budget-balancing legislation until $155 million had been restored for their state's Medicaid plan.
   Still others have fought battles for their states' farm subsidies and other parochial interests that have cost taxpayers countless dollars.
   The piece goes on to say that GOP campaign chairman Bill Paxon is proud that the average Republican freshman got $123,000 out of political donors in his or her first six months of office, considerably more than that raised by all Republicans. Half of that came from political action committees, the very committees that so many of these congressmen set out to ban.

What does it mean? It means that many Republican congressmen are saying that the Contract On America, oops, Contract With America, is OK for everyone but themselves.
Now that Republicans are in the majority in the House and Senate, issues such as campaign reform are taking a back seat, even though they were major issues during last year's campaign.
In short, it means Americans were fed a lot of baloney last year. It means that those who claimed that they had the answers didn't. It means that those who were so critical of pork-barrel politics have become the chief purveyors or pork, people who believe that it's only pork when it's not coming to their district.

Voters then, to no one's surprise, are having second thoughts about this so-called revolution. What many are seeing is a revolution that wasn't. A sleight of hand that involves taking money from one hand and merely moving it to another. Polls are showing voters with less and less confidence in Congress. Many are considerably less certain than they once were that the Republican Party is going to bring about the change that was promised.
This isn't to say that the public's interested in the old system either. Political action committees - whether the National Education Association or the National Rifle Association - line the pockets and grease the hands of politicians in Washington, and many folks are tired of it.

In my view, voters last year were not saying that they wanted the Contract With America; most people didn't know what it included anyway.
What they were saying was that they were tired of the same old thing, the same old politics as usual. What voters last year were looking for was a government that would eschew special interests, one that would pay more attention to what its voters wanted and less attention to what its contributors wanted.
A government where elected officials would be true to their word about reform of the system and not just give it lip service. A government that would be fair to all of its citizens, not one that would prey on the poor and seniors in an effort to please favored constituencies.

That's not what voters got. American government hasn't changed. It's not any more responsive to the average person than it ever was. No one should be surprised, then, that voters are angry again.
Face it: The Republicans who run Congress these days just don't get it.
There may yet be another revolution. This time, though, it may be against them.

Daniel Schesch - Webweaver

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