Washington Hitches a Ride on the Morals Bandwagon

Quit smoking. Drink less. Don’t gamble; but if you must, honor your debts.

Amid a flurry of such exhortations, Congress is embarking on an extraordinary legislative crusade to combat what many members consider a coarsening of America’s moral fiber.

In the huge highway-spending bill passed by the Senate on Thursday were new crackdowns, encouraged by President Clinton, on drunk driving.

The anti-smoking fervor on Capitol Hill, also fanned by the White House, is likely to yield new deterrents against that vice.

And legislation to ban online gambling and curb access to pornography on the Internet is picking up momentum.

Even the emerging debates on revamping personal bankruptcy laws and providing new money for the International Monetary Fund are imbued with moral overtones.

“I hesitate to use this word, but could all this be an expression of . . . values?” asked Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.).

“People may feel well-off economically, but they also feel the country is not going in the right direction morally and culturally,” said Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.).

The emergence of such a broad array of “values” initiatives is partly a coincidence. But as questions over Clinton’s personal problems linger, the proposals emanating from Capitol Hill also reflect a public desire to “recalibrate the moral compass of America,” said Randy Tate, executive director of the conservative Christian Coalition.

“The nation is searching for some old ways of doing things,” added House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas), a leading proponent of legislating values.

“We need to address the spread of vices that are encroaching deeper and deeper into our lives.”

Although most of the pending issues enjoy bipartisan support, Democrats and Republicans nevertheless are jockeying for an edge with an eye toward the November elections. As Armey said in a recent memo to his GOP colleagues: “I believe the issues of values and morality will be the dominant issues of 1998 and 2000.”

Some members, however, question the ability of Congress--with its extensive history of sex and booze scandals--to lead a spiritual awakening. As Sen. John B. Breaux (D-La.) put it: “Congress doesn’t have a great deal of credibility in that area.”

Armey conceded: “Americans are wary of politicians trying to manipulate these issues.”

One example of the congressional double standard: Although smoking in public buildings is no longer allowed, it is all but unrestricted in the Capitol, where hordes of unsuspecting tourists can round a corner and find themselves enveloped in thick clouds of tobacco fumes.

Since taking control of Congress three years ago, the Republicans have advanced numerous proposals with overt moral dimensions, such as a ban on “partial-birth” abortions.

But as Armey acknowledged in his Jan. 16 memo to fellow House Republicans: “We have failed to advance other issues, particularly economic issues, in moral terms. This has allowed us to be defined by dollar signs, and we can’t allow it to continue.”

At the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington research organization, Armey said last Wednesday that the drive to abolish the “marriage penalty,” the extra tax paid by married couples compared to unmarried couples who live together and file separate returns, must be presented not as an economic issue but as a Republican “endorsement of morality.”

He is injecting the same moral dimension into the nascent GOP drive to reform personal bankruptcy laws.

Until about 15 years ago, bankruptcy filings rose during recessions and fell during prosperity. But since 1985, at least 10 million Americans have filed for personal bankruptcy--more than half of all filings since federal laws were enacted a century ago.

Armey blames the ease of filing and the diminishing stigma associated with bankruptcy for the increase. Reforming the system must be “about people’s responsibility to creditors,” he said. Filing for bankruptcy once brought “embarrassment,” he added, but now “it stigmatizes you if you don’t.”

In short, he concluded, bankruptcy reform is “about the character of a nation.”

The controversy over IMF funding raises the same issue, he argued. “For us to continue to prop up bad business decisions made by imprudent businessmen, I think, spreads that sort of character erosion.”

One social critic, however, says both the White House and the GOP-controlled Congress are paying insufficient attention to combating illicit drug use, which is rising, especially among teenagers.

“Neither has been very active,” said conservative commentator William J. Bennett, who was drug czar during the Bush administration. “What’s the problem? I don’t get it.”

Among the recent Capitol Hill developments on an array of values initiatives:

* The House Judiciary Committee on March 4 approved a resolution condemning legalization of marijuana, even for medicinal use.

* The Senate Commerce Committee on March 12 passed legislation to restrict Internet distribution of pornography by requiring a personal identification number or a credit card number before such images can be accessed.

* The same panel also voted to end federal Internet subsidies to schools and libraries that do not install equipment to block indecent materials that can be found on about 28,000 pornographic sites.

* The Senate this spring will consider prohibiting online gambling by extending the federal ban on interstate gambling via telephone or wire to include computers and the Internet.

The Treasury Department is conducting a $200,000 study of the link between gambling and personal bankruptcies, and a nine-member national commission is examining the effects of the rapid spread of legal gambling across the nation.

According to the International Union of Gospel Missions, 18% of homeless men and women at rescue missions cited gambling as a cause of their plight. Sen. John Ashcroft (R-Mo.) called the group’s March 12 survey “a fireball in the night, warning America against the terrible effects of legalized gambling on individuals, families and the culture.”

Bernie Horn, communications director of the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling, said that until a few years ago, Congress abetted the spread of gambling.

Now, by contrast, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) is talking about creating “gambling-free children’s zones” near schools and prohibiting children in casinos.

In the highway-spending bill, the Senate set a tough national standard for determining when a driver is legally drunk.

On tobacco, Congress is considering a $1.50 per-pack increase in the cigarette tax as well as broadening the jurisdiction of the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco products. New restrictions on tobacco ads directed at minors, as well as new smoking-cessation programs, are also under consideration.

The emphasis on moral issues will play well with the public, predicts Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.

“The public tends to focus on moral concerns when they’re not worried about their immediate economic circumstances.

“In the past, we’ve certainly seen instances where Congress has tried to get on the moral bandwagon,” Ornstein said.

“But as a proportion of its legislative activity, we’ve not seen anything quite like this.”

As evidence of public yearning for a “resurgence of basic morality,” Armey’s memo on “Recovering Our Moral Emphasis” cited booming sales of religious books and music, the sharp rise in Sunday School attendance and polls showing increased public concern about the decline in morality.

“Every so often there are powerful currents in society that have the ability to reshape the cultural landscape,” Armey concluded.

He conceded that Clinton and the Democrats recognized the trend “well ahead” of most Republicans. To overtake them, Armey said, the GOP must “develop and move a clear legislative agenda that demonstrates our commitment to the shared values of the American people.”