GOP Congress Leaves Broad Imprint on U.S.

As the 104th Congress ends its landmark two-year ride under Republican control, it leaves a conservative imprint across a broad swath of American life, from South Central Los Angeles to the Midwestern Farm Belt to the Oval Office itself.

Congress has transformed Depression-era programs to give the states more control over welfare and the free market more influence over agriculture. It has cracked down on illegal immigration, expanded health insurance and tinkered with the Constitution’s balance of power by giving the president a line-item veto.

Those and other policies enacted by the 104th Congress are considerably less sweeping than the master plan unfurled by the rambunctious new GOP majority two years ago.

But they may be more durable.

Even if Democrats take control of the House and Senate in the 1996 election, they probably will not roll back many of the policy changes that this Congress has wrought.

“I don’t see any legislation we would attempt to undo,” conceded Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), with the possible exception of this year’s welfare overhaul.

Indeed, for all the bitter partisanship of this legislative session, many of the major achievements of the 104th Congress drew heavy Democratic support.

Congress may not adjourn until later this week, because lawmakers are still squabbling over a labor provision contained in a pending air transportation bill. But with the Senate’s approval Monday of an omnibus budget bill to fund the government for the next year, the 104th Congress’ legislative legacy essentially has been written.

Already, Republicans are bragging about all they have done. And they are bragging in very different terms than they used during their heady first 100 days of power.

The erstwhile “revolutionaries” of the GOP now rarely mention their “contract with America,” the conservative manifesto that dictated their initial legislative agenda. Now, their most combative field marshal has become an apostle of “common-sense” reforms.

“You asked for real change in 1994,” said House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) in a session-ending speech. “We kept our word. We used common sense.”

Democrats dismiss the Republicans’ record as something hastily compiled in the last few months to distract voters from more drastic changes that Republicans had sought, such as deep tax cuts, a Medicare overhaul and other proposals left on the cutting-room floor.

“The charade of the last several months is designed to get them through the election,” Daschle said.

Record in Dispute

While Democrats characterize the GOP record as meager and Republicans call it the most productive in a generation, nonpartisan observers see the truth somewhere in between.

Compared to the grand ambitions of Republican lawmakers when they came to power, analysts said, the 104th Congress may have been a flop, its record riddled with disappointments on budget and tax issues that were central to the conservative agenda.

But, compared to the record of other recent Congresses, this one produced legislation of unusually broad sweep.

“It’s a pretty impressive list and a lot of it is very consequential,” said Charles O. Jones, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin. “It’s a Congress that took charge of the agenda. [The Republican majority] went too far with it. But it was a bold stroke and it did have an impact.”

Impact on California

No state will be affected as much as California by enactment of legislation cracking down on illegal immigration. The immigration measure, cleared for the White House Monday as part of the budget approved by the Senate and signed Monday night by President Clinton, will increase border patrols and take other steps to deter illegal immigration. It is the first major immigration bill in a decade.

The most far-reaching change wrought by Congress is this year’s welfare reform bill, the capstone of GOP efforts to transform the balance of power between Washington and the states. Despite concessions made to win Clinton’s approval, the bill retained conservatives’ core principles of ending the federal guarantee of cash benefits to the poor and giving states broad new powers to design their own programs.

Clinton has said that he will push for changes in the welfare law next year to reverse proposed cuts in food stamps, restore benefits for legal immigrants and soften other provisions he considers too harsh. But he has not talked about reversing field on the central elements of the bill: ending the guarantee of federal benefits and transferring power to the states.

On another front, Republicans came to power brimming with hopes of rolling back federal regulation of the environment and the workplace. Their most ambitious schemes ran aground but deregulation is a core tenet of two major legislative accomplishments: bills overhauling the telecommunications law and the nation’s entrenched system of subsidizing agriculture.

The telecommunications bill, which had languished in Congress for years, rewrites decades of communications policy, replacing government regulation with increased competition in the rapidly changing telephone and cable television industries.

The farm bill revamps the arcane system of crop subsidies put in place 60 years ago, one of the many gigantic entitlement programs that Congress historically has found so hard to trim. The new law lifts government restrictions on what farmers can plant. It provides farmers with declining payments over the next seven years, replacing the current system that ties subsidies to fluctuations in the market.

Health Care Regulation

Ironically, another landmark of the 104th Congress has increased government regulation where before there had been little of it. Just two years after the demise of Clinton’s ambitious proposal to guarantee universal access to health care, Republicans joined Democrats in supporting bills to expand health insurance benefits. The measures bar health insurance companies from denying coverage to people because of ongoing medical problems, require them to cover women for at least 48 hours of hospitalization after delivering a baby and improve coverage for mental illness.

Those incremental reforms would have been dwarfed by Clinton’s plan, but they represent the biggest changes in federal health policy since the late 1980s.

In budget policy, Republicans’ reach far exceeded their grasp. An ambitious plan to balance the budget by the year 2002 collapsed, but they still pressed for spending cuts through the annual appropriations process.

In this fall’s year-end budget negotiations, Republicans made major concessions to Clinton, retreating from many of the cuts that they had imposed last year. In fact, spending on programs controlled by appropriations will increase from $488 billion in 1996 to $497 billion in 1997. But that is still down from the $508 billion spent in 1995. Assessing the cumulative impact of their policies, Republicans estimated that Congress has appropriated about $50 billion less than would have been spent otherwise during their two-year reign.

What’s more, Republicans contend that they have eliminated about 290 federal programs. Some are significant examples of what the GOP sees as outmoded, such as the Interstate Commerce Commission. But most are small, obscure agencies like the American Folklife Center. And some of the agencies Republicans most love to hate, including the Commerce Department and the National Endowment for the Arts, are still functioning.

One of the biggest GOP disappointments was the failure to win the large tax cuts characterized as the “crown jewel” of the Republican agenda, including a $500-per-child tax credit for families, cuts in capital gains taxes and other breaks for businesses and individuals. All they could manage was a small package of tax cuts for small business, tax credits for families that adopt children and a provision allowing homemakers to set up individual retirement accounts.

Cleaning Own House

When it comes to reforming Congress itself, lawmakers shunned the most fundamental changes: Campaign finance reform and congressional term limits were soundly rejected.

Even so, Republicans are leaving a permanent mark on Congress’ own operations, changes that for years seemed impossible in the insular culture of Capitol Hill. The GOP abolished outmoded House committees, imposed new limits on gifts from lobbyists and made Congress comply with the same workplace laws that apply to other employers.

“Those things will stay,” said a top aide to House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), who is expected to be speaker if Democrats take charge of the House.

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Legislative Legacy

A report card on the 104th Congress:

MAJOR LAWS ENACTED

Anti-terrorism: Expanded federal powers to prosecute and punish certain crimes related to terrorism.

Congressional reform: Required Congress to comply with workplace laws imposed on other employers; imposed strict limits on gifts from lobbyists; tightened reporting rules for lobbyists.

Crime: Restricted death row appeals; required community notification if a convicted sex offender moves into the neighborhood; made interstate stalking a federal crime.

Federal spending: Reduced appropriations for discretionary programs by about $50 billion over two years; total budget increased because of growth in entitlement programs like Social Security.

Health insurance: Guaranteed that workers can keep their health insurance when they change or lose jobs, and that they can get insurance even if they already have medical problems; required employers to increase insurance coverage of mental illness; guaranteed 48-hour hospital stays for new mothers and their infants.

Immigration: Cracked down on illegal immigration by increasing border patrols, increasing penalties for smuggling immigrants and streamlining the deportation process.

Line-item veto: Gave the president power to rescind individual spending items and tax breaks without vetoing the entire bill.

Minimum wage: Raised the minimum wage from $4.25 to $4.75 per hour on Oct. 1 and to $5.15 on Sept. 1, 1997.

Program cuts: Abolished the Interstate Commerce Commission as well as some 290 smaller agencies, offices and programs.

Small business taxes: Cut a variety of small business taxes; provided tax credits to families that adopt children; allowed homemakers to set up individual retirement accounts.

Telecommunications: Deregulated telephone and cable television industries.

Water pollution: Strengthened anti-pollution standards for drinking water.

Welfare reform: Ended the federal guarantee of cash assistance to all eligible low-income mothers and children; gave broad authority to states to administer block grants.

Unfunded mandates: Made it harder for Congress to impose mandates on states without helping to pay for the cost of compliance.

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MEASURES THAT FAILED

Abortion: Congress voted to outlawed a controversial late-term abortion procedure; President Clinton vetoed.

Anti-missile defense: Congress authorized a new anti-missile defense system; Clinton vetoed.

Budget balancing: Congress passed a bill to balance the budget by 2002; Clinton vetoed. The House approved a constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget; the measure died in the Senate.

Campaign finance: Both houses rejected a measure to overhaul the way congressional campaigns are financed.

Medicaid overhaul: Congress passed legislation giving states more power to run the health care program for the poor; Clinton vetoed.

Medicare overhaul: Congress voted to curb the growth of Medicare to help keep the program solvent; Clinton vetoed.

Product liability: Congress capped punitive damage awards in product liability suits; Clinton vetoed.

Tax cuts: Congress voted to provide a $500-per-child tax credit for families, reduce capital gains taxes, and give other breaks for businesses and individuals; Clinton vetoed.