When It Comes to Key Issues, Ours Is Not a Nation Divided

Ever since the nation’s voters opted once again for divided government, public discourse in Washington has oscillated bungee-style between bipartisanship and recrimination.

Lately, vows to work together constructively seem drowned out by the Clinton fund-raising scandals, the Paula Jones case, and speaker Gingrich’s ethics hearings. But there is ample reason to believe cooperation and achievement lie ahead.

The scandals aren’t going away. They’re simply irrelevant to the larger agenda that awaits action by Congress and the president.

Just as the 104th Congress helped President Clinton keep his 1992 campaign promise to “end welfare as we know it,” the 105th will send up legislation recalling this and other of Clinton’s 1996 campaign themes. The list is impressive: lower taxes, a balanced budget; tougher competency tests for teachers; redoubled efforts against inner-city crime; new incentives for job training; campaign finance reform; streamlining government; expanding global trade; and empowering parents to better supervise and guide their children.

Ironically--or perhaps predictably, given the advanced state of campaign polling--most successful candidates in both parties stressed many of these same themes. That should make it short work for Congress to move on these issues.

In the last Congress, the new majority learned the hard way that there is little profit in passing bills that don’t get signed--or, worse yet, don’t even make it to the president’s desk. The lesson is not to dilute the legislation, but rather to focus on those issues that have the greatest prospect of success. Here are several candidates:

Capital gains. In 1992, then-Gov. Clinton convinced a mostly Republican group of Orange County executives gathered at the Pacific Club that he was serious about cutting the rate of tax on capital gains. President Clinton vetoed the 1995 cap gains cut, but that one was buried in the enormous Balanced Budget Act. This time it will come without embellishment, and it will succeed.

Estate taxes. Less than 1% of federal revenue comes from this 55% confiscation of a family’s after-tax life savings. As illustrated by Peter O’Malley’s decision to sell the Dodgers (and thereby avoid $150 million in estimated death taxes), rich people don’t pay it. Workers do though, when they lose their jobs as 70% of small businesses and family farms are liquidated on the death of the founder just to pay estate taxes. Clinton’s own White House Conference on Small Business has made repeal a top priority.

Tobacco. Look for the 105th Congress to end tobacco welfare as we know it. Price supports and other tobacco subsidies are at the top of everyone’s “corporate welfare” hit list.

Campaign reform. There is a middle ground here, and it’s the aggressive approach: Ban PACs. Ban corporate and labor soft money. And put every single contribution in front of the voters in real time, on the Internet.

Entitlements. In the words of Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), it’s time for an end to “the current system of unconditional government entitlements [in favor of a] market-based system.” As any baby boomer or Generation X-er can tell you, this includes reforming both Social Security and Medicare, before they go bankrupt.

Environment. When the 104th Congress produced two landmark laws--the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Food Quality Protection Act--with liberals and conservatives locking arms, people started taking notice. Already, new initiatives are in the offing. Superfund will be rescued from the lawyers (who have gotten nearly half of the $25 billion spent since the law was enacted). And the United States will take global pollution increasingly seriously.

Budget reform. Passage of the Balanced Budget Amendment will ignite a national passion for fiscal reform as the ratification debate moves to the legislatures of all 50 states. This is a favorable climate for a total overhaul of the broken-down congressional budget process. My bill to do just that has already won bipartisan sponsorship from a majority of the House.

Bosnia self-defense. The extension of the U.S. troop presence in the Balkans far beyond Clinton’s “only one year” promise follows from the president’s breach of another promise--given in writing to Sen. Dole and others--to assist the Bosnians so that can provide for their own defense. Because Bosnian self-defense is fundamental to an American exit strategy, Congress will enforce this commitment.

U.S.-China relations. While the argument over “most favored nation” status will grab most of the attention, the PRC’s bid to enter the World Trade Organization offers the United States a more significant lever. Leverage is needed because the Communist government continues to run up massive trade surpluses with the U.S. by limiting access to the Chinese market and undercutting Western labor standards.

NATO expansion. The 1996 Clinton campaign pledge to enlarge NATO to include the new democracies of central Europe, beginning with Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, was made too frequently for the administration now to abandon it in the face of complaints from Russian hard-liners.

Any of these would be significant achievements, and many more are possible. Both the White House and the Congress have an enormous incentive to follow through, because the blood sport of scandal politics has raised public distrust of each. While it’s true, therefore, that bipartisanship won’t supplant incivility in Washington, it’s alive and well just the same, and the legislative results promise to be impressive indeed.