GOP Elephant Appears to Forget Its Aversion to Big Government

A funny thing is happening on the way to next year’s midterm congressional elections: Republicans seem to have forgotten their signature issue of reducing the size and scope of government.

Just look at some of the issues the GOP has made paramount in the waning days of this session of Congress: Republican initiatives to dispense federal school vouchers and pour more money into charter schools, and a highway bill bulging with pork-barrel projects. The party that once fought to abolish the Department of Education would now be happy just to keep the department from administering national academic tests.

Many of those issues are designed to galvanize the party’s conservative political base for the coming election year. But they are a marked departure from the GOP’s past, jihad-like efforts to shrink government and reduce spending.

Indeed, one of the final dramas of this year’s session of Congress may be a striking political role reversal: Republicans are squawking because their home-state projects have fallen victim to President Clinton’s use of the line-item veto, which conservatives long championed.

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“There has been a total change in not just the rhetoric but the attitude in this session of Congress,” said Stephen Moore, director of fiscal policy at the conservative Cato Institute think tank in Washington. “A large number of these Republicans are acting as if their sole mission in life is to bring a parking garage or skating rink back to their district, rather than being committed to the agenda of smaller, smarter government.”

Republicans in Congress acknowledge a marked shift in emphasis, but they say it is because they have already struck a big blow for smaller government by enacting many elements of the GOP’s 1994 conservative agenda, the “contract with America,” along with a five-year plan to balance the federal budget.

“There is a heavy emphasis on what’s next in the Republican agenda because we’ve completed our commitments with the ‘contract with America’ and because everyone is looking ahead to the next election,” said Terry Holt, spokesman for the House Republican Conference. “We’ve done a substantial pivot to refocus on new priorities.”

But many fiscal conservatives complain that the budget-balancing plan amounts to a cease-fire, if not an outright surrender, in the war to reduce the size of government because it still allows federal spending to grow.

Indeed, now that a possible budget surplus is within sight, Republicans are debating among themselves about how they might spend the windfall. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) has already called for using part of the surplus for increased spending for defense, science and highways.

When Republicans first took control of Congress in 1995, they were brimming with enthusiasm to pull out federal programs and agencies by the roots, not just trimming the branches.

They called for wholesale elimination of agencies, such as the Legal Services Corp., the Commerce Department and the Corp. for Public Broadcasting. But every time they tried to swing the ax, a devoted constituency would plead for a stay of execution.

“The size and scope of government is an issue that traditionally Republicans do well on in generalities, but it’s much tougher to bring into specifics,” said Glen Bolger, a Republican pollster. “Once you are talking about specific programs, one constituency or another says, ‘This is the one thing government does well.’ ”

Now Republicans are taking a new tack, building their fall legislative agenda around two themes, education and taxes, that they believe will be more advantageous in next year’s election campaigns.

The GOP’s biggest political coup this fall has been its campaign to expose abuses at the Internal Revenue Service and to push legislation to overhaul the agency, an issue that tapped into the public’s tax and bureaucracy animus.

“It’s the one real winner they have come up with,” said Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia. “It unites all the factions of the party and helps them where they need help the most, like with women [voters].”

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Clinton may have neutralized the GOP’s political advantage by abruptly dropping his opposition to IRS reform legislation. But Republicans plan to build on the issue to talk about cutting taxes and overhauling the Tax Code next year.

“The central thrust of the Republican Party remains that taxes should be lower and the government should have less control,” said Grover Norquist, a close ally of Gingrich and head of Americans for Tax Reform. When the focus is on spending, he said, people rush to defend their favorite programs.

“When you talk about the taxing end, Clinton gets embarrassed.”

The education issues being pushed by the GOP this fall are a clear sign of their shift in priorities. When Republicans took control of Congress, they were heady with talk of dismantling the Education Department. Now little is heard of that idea. Instead, House Republicans are trying to limit the department’s power by fighting Clinton’s proposal to develop national academic tests.

And despite years of opposition to expanding the federal role in education, Republicans are proposing a panoply of initiatives billed as efforts to expand parents’ education choices: school vouchers, aid to charter schools, tax incentives to save for education.

“It was easy enough to say we were going to abolish the Department of Education, but that did not speak particularly well to the underlying problems of education,” Holt said. “Expanding choice for parents was at the heart of what people in America were concerned about.”

Many of the issues on the horizon for Congress next year promise more government, not less. New efforts are afoot to regulate the managed-health-care industry. The huge federal tobacco settlement is awaiting congressional approval. One of the first things to come up will be a bill to increase government spending for highways--an election-year favorite that allows members of Congress to bring home the bacon.

Indeed, this year is ending with the spotlight on Congress’ continuing appetite for home-state projects.

Clinton has cast a series of line-item vetoes to excise projects he considers wasteful, including a lake-dredging project backed by Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and military procurement in Gingrich’s home state.

“It’s like looking through the looking glass,” Moore said. “It’s the most ironic thing to hear Republicans whining about Clinton’s use of the line-item veto to terminate their white elephant projects.”