In Congress: Year 1 of the Experiment

The Revolution is here. This week, the army of national liberation marches into the capital and takes over the government. Perhaps the jubilant masses will dance in the streets, wreathing the victors in garlands and singing, “Arise, ye prisoners of taxation! Arise, ye privileged of the Earth!”

And, at the head of the people’s army, will be Chairman Newt, smiling, saluting and waving his Little Red Contract.

It’s been an arduous struggle, and many heroes of the Revolution fell along the way--Barry M. Goldwater, Richard M. Nixon. But the Republicans have finally stormed the citadel of Congress, the last stronghold of the old regime. Twenty-five years after Kevin Phillips predicted “the emerging Republican majority,” the Republican majority has emerged.

Sure, the White House is still Democratic. But that’s just a matter of time. President Bill Clinton is a lame duck, repudiated by the voters and powerless to defy the will of the people--even though he says he intends to run for reelection. A little mopping up operation in 1996, and the Revolution will be complete.

As Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) put it: “If the President heard the voice of the people on Nov. 8 and he wants to get on the train and be the engineer, great. If he wants to wave goodby to us at the station, we can wave back. And if he wants to stand in the middle of the tracks and try to stop the train, we can live with that.”

Like all revolutions, this one comes with a theory. The theory is that the country’s problems can be solved with less government. All we have to do is cut taxes, cut spending and cut regulations. Then, presto, we can get a handle on problems like welfare, urban decay, competitiveness and moral decline.

The communists had a utopian vision of the workers’ paradise. They carried out a massive social experiment that ended in disaster. Republicans also have a utopian vision, one of limited government. Right now, they’re euphoric. At last, they can turn their theory into reality. Liberals are terrified. Will there be purges and show trials, starting with Whitewater?

1995 is the Year One. As the new Congress convenes this week, the Great Experiment begins. Here are some of the things we can expect to find out as the experiment progresses.

Do Americans want less government? They voted as if they did. But the crunch will come this year, when Congress tries to make sweeping cuts in every area of government spending except Social Security and defense. Will those efforts be met with applause--or outrage?

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “There are no second acts in American lives.” Maybe, but there are second acts in American politics. What we’re about to see is the second act of the Reagan Revolution.

Act I, you will remember, had some problems. In 1981, Congress passed big tax cuts but never came up with the spending cuts to pay for them. Now the GOP is promising another round of tax cuts. Clinton has accepted the GOP challenge. Last month, he said he, too, was for tax cuts, but he upped the ante: He spelled out how he would pay for them--something the contract does not do.

The Republicans were not daunted. “We’re going to cut spending first,” incoming House Budget Committee chairman John R. Kasich (R-Ohio) announced. His sentiments were echoed by Robert W. Packwood (R-Ore.), incoming chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, one of the players in Act I.

Polls show voters still have an expansive view of what government should do (improve education, relieve poverty, reduce crime, etc.). But people have lost faith in what government can do (improve education, relieve poverty, reduce crime, etc.). Now Republicans have a chance to prove they can solve problems with less government. We’ll see.

Here’s something else we’ll find out from the Great Experiment of 1995: Are Americans serious about deficit reduction?

To judge from the tax-cut mania now consuming Washington, the answer is no. Look at the record. Two special commissions tried to devise a solution to the deficit--the National Economic Commission in 1989 and the Entitlement Reform Commission chaired by senators Robert Kerrey and John C. Danforth last year. They both collapsed. Several presidential candidates ran on deficit reduction--Walter F. Mondale in 1984, Bruce Babbitt in 1988, Paul E. Tsongas and Ross Perot in 1992. They all lost.

Congress tried to manufacture a deficit crisis in 1984 when it passed the Gramm-Rudman law. It didn’t work. President George Bush agreed to raise taxes as part of a deficit-reduction package in 1990. He got murdered for it. Clinton has already cut the deficit by a third. He got his head handed to him.

This year the Republicans’ gimmick is a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution: “Hey, I know! Let’s declare the deficit unconstitutional!” Will it pass? Almost certainly. Will it work? We’ll see.

Can the country be governed by Congress? The Founding Fathers intended it that way. Since the New Deal, however, power has shifted to the executive branch. The President is expected to initiate as well as execute the laws.

The new Congress wants to reclaim the initiative. That will not be easy in the television age. Television is much better at covering personalities than institutions. TV needs a strong central character. It can’t cover Congress without reducing it to personalities. That’s why it’s treating Newt Gingrich as if he were the new President.

That could be a problem for the GOP. Most voters had no idea who Gingrich was when they voted on Nov. 8. They were voting for a party, not a man. According to the Gallup Poll, the more people have gotten to know Gingrich in the last two months, the less they like him. Republicans have got to keep the public’s attention focused on the program, not the Speaker. TV will be of no help.

Suppose the tax cuts spook the financial markets and drive up interest rates. That could throw the economy into another recession, just in time for the 1996 campaign. Will the voters do what they have always done and hold the President responsible? Or will Clinton be able to pass the blame off to the Republican Congress? We’ll see.

Americans want to be governed by citizen-politicians? In 1994, the voters showed their contempt for professional politicians by passing term limits everywhere. They ousted the power structure of Congress--including the Speaker.

Republicans say they will govern as citizen-legislators, not as professional politicians. And they will prove it by voting for term limits on themselves. Fine, but let’s remember why professional politicians ended up in such disrepute. It wasn’t because they were indifferent to public opinion. It was because they were too responsive to what the voters wanted.

Professional politicians are professionals in the art of staying elected. They know how to keep up their personal favorability ratings. The secret is, don’t do anything that could make you personally unpopular. Don’t take risks. And don’t get the voters angry at you. Exactly why members of Congress kept getting reelected but Congress as an institution didn’t work.

In 1994, the voters did something they have never done. They rose up in revolt against Congress as an institution. Members with high personal favorability ratings got swept away. “Nothing personal,” voters said to legislators like Speaker Thomas S. Foley. “We like you and we know you’re working hard for this district. But we’re mad as hell because Congress isn’t working for the country. So out you go.”

The idea of a citizen-legislator is different. It’s someone who doesn’t care about staying elected. He or she is only going to be in government for a short time and then go back to making an honest living. Citizen-legislators are not supposed to be slavishly responsive to the public. They’re supposed to be bold and courageous and do things for the good of the country, even if the voters don’t like it.

Do Americans really want legislators who will make tough choices and be willing to defy public opinion? We’ll see.

Karl Marx promised that, after the communist utopia was achieved, the result would be “the withering away of the state.” It didn’t work out that way. Now the Republicans are promising their version of “the withering away of the state.” Will this Revolution work out any better? We’ll see.*