|
Monday, December 7, 1998
Thinking Anew: The Agenda for the 106th Congress
By Christopher Cox
Chairman, House Policy Committee
Rarely since he advised Americans to "think anew" 136 years ago has the advice of Abraham Lincoln, the founder of the Republican Party, been more relevant.
In 1862, both Congress and the nation were riven by partisan and sectional differences that make today’s partisan tensions all but disappear in comparison. By "thinking anew," Lincoln was able to find a path through the competing factions.
In 1998, with a nation at peace, a strong economy, and widespread popular contentment, our task is to lay the foundation for lasting prosperity and freedom, far into the future. But because the parties in Congress remain deeply divided, we too can only move forward by thinking anew -- by creating a consensus in Congress about meansthat mirrors the nation’s consensus about ends.
In the last Congress, I worked closely with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), my former colleague on the House Commerce Committee, to keep taxes off the Internet. We are both interested in fostering the growth of the Internet, but we knew that Congress could do nothing to promote its development without agreement across the aisle.
The result of our collaboration was the Internet Tax Freedom Act, a three-year moratorium on Internet taxation. By thinking anew, a liberal Democrat in the Senate and a conservative Republican in the House were able to achieve sweeping consensus inside Congress, and the President’s strong endorsement.
The best policy solutions should not require conservatives or liberals to abandon their principles, but rather should vindicate them. "Thinking anew" should be our model as we approach the four key issues we must address in the 106th Congress: education, Social Security, national security, and tax relief for all Americans. If we’re willing to focus on fresh approaches, we can find ways to bridge the gulf between the parties on each of these issues.
Education
Americans, no matter what their party affiliation, know that we can and must improve our elementary and secondary schools. The partisan differences concern only the means. Republicans advocate choice. Democrats advocate federal-level spending programs. If the debate continues on those terms, that’s all we’ll get: debate.
If we want progress, we must think anew. What are the principles upon which Democrats and Republicans can agree? The most obvious is local control.
"The day of the Washington dictation style setting is over," said pollster Lou Harris at a November 18 National Press Club news conference analyzing education as an election issue. "The day of innovation at the local level is beginning."
The federal government taxed and spent $17.2 billion for elementary and secondary education in 1998, about $325 for each public school student. More than a third of that money never reached the classroom. The challenge for the 106thCongress is to find new ways to get far more of this money to schools and parents, giving them the flexibility they need to spend it wisely and as they think best. Whether the most pressing need is for higher teacher salaries, better school buildings, charter schools, education choice programs, or school uniforms, the parents, students, and teachers know best. Local control is a principle upon which we can all agree -- and from which great results can proceed.
Social Security
When President Clinton appointed me to the Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement Reform, I was prepared for partisan division. But our report was virtually unanimous: the current Social Security system is unsustainable. The pay-as-you-go system that worked so well during the 20th Century, when our work force was growing and the ratio of workers to retirees was consistently healthy, will no longer work in the next century. The demographics speak for themselves.
As recently as 1960, 5.1 workers paid Social Security taxes to support each Social Security beneficiary, but when the "baby-boom" generation is fully retired, there will be only two workers per beneficiary. According to the 1998 Social Security Trustees’ Report, the impending retirement of the "baby-boom" generation will soon put Social Security in the red. In 15 years, Social Security costs will exceed Social Security payroll taxes.
The problem is that Social Security is an unfunded retirement system. The solution is to replace our unfunded retirement program with a funded program. And we must do so now, before the system starts running out of cash.
Speaker Livingston’s proposal to stop using the Social Security tax surplus to balance the budget is a critical first step, and has already attracted strong bipartisan support. In addition, most should agree that every American is entitled to earn a fair return -- or at least a positive return -- on his or her Social Security taxes. To this end, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) has proposed that taxpayers be allowed to put one-third of their payroll taxes into Personal Retirement Accounts that will supplement Social Security.
We have a great opportunity to make Social Security work for future generations, just as it has since the 1930s. As Senator Moynihan says, "we are all agreed on this. We only have to do it."
National Security
Today, terrorist groups can obtain chemical, nuclear, and biological weapons, and Third World dictatorships from North Korea to Iraq will soon threaten U.S. territory with long-range weapons of mass destruction once possessed only by the Soviet Union. It is time to think anew about national security policy.
In recent years, the Congress has expressed overwhelming bipartisan frustration with the lack of a coherent Clinton administration foreign policy. More than two thirds of the House and Senate voted to pass the Iranian Missile Proliferation Sanctions Act, despite Administration opposition.
Bipartisan majorities have recently come to the view that it is untenable to send foreign aid -- even nuclear technology -- to the North Korean dictatorship, the most repressive regime on earth. The public is frustrated with the administration’s abandonment of one after another of the terms of Iraq’s 1991 surrender. And there are also bipartisan calls to rebuild our national security, which has been cut 22 percent as a share of federal spending since President Clinton took office.
A strong bipartisan coalition supported efforts to put in place in 1999 the first real increase in defense resources in more than a decade. Support for a defense against terrorist missile attacks is widespread in both the House and the Senate. And in the wake of India’s and Pakistan’s explosion of nuclear devices, North Korea’s launching of a multi-stage missile over Japan, and intensified Sino-Russian military cooperation, a new bipartisan consensus has begun to form for Ballistic Missile Defense -- a top priority for the new Speaker.
This year, the bipartisan Rumsfeld Commission reported to Congress that new ballistic missile threats to the U.S. could emerge much more quickly and unpredictably than previously thought. Just a few months ago, the Senate came within one vote of passing legislation that would have addressed these concerns. The 106thCongress must well finish the job.
The President and the 106th Congress will also have the opportunity to make a full commitment to remove Saddam Hussein. The Iraq Liberation Act, which passed the House in October 1998 with 360 votes, was signed into law by the President with little fanfare. But it provides for meaningful new support for the Iraqi opposition. And now, in the wake of Saddam Hussein’s latest provocation, the President has at last signaled that he will use this new authority. Bipartisan majorities in both the House and Senate will give the President whatever further support he needs to finish this job, too.
Tax Relief for All Americans and Economic Growth
Finally, we must think anew about the size of the federal government. In 1998, the federal government passed the $2 trillion mark in annual spending, and federal tax collections grew twice as fast as the economy.
As a result, Americans pay 40% more in federal taxes today than just five years ago. Tax collections have grown from $1.5 trillion to $2.1 trillion under the Clinton presidency, and have now reached the record-high levels of World War II -- even when measured as a share of the economy.
Congress enacted modest tax relief in 1997. But the federal government still collected $300 billion more in 1998 than in 1996 -- enough to pay for a second Department of Defense, with three new NASAs to spare.
The partisan approach to this problem is to insist on a false choice between tax cuts and surpluses, or between tax cuts and saving Social Security. Neither is valid. Responsible reductions in tax rates have consistently spurred the economic growth that is now generating higher tax revenues. Moreover, a strong economy and the growing payroll taxes it yields are essential to saving Social Security for future generations.
Last September, the Congressional Policy Advisory Board -- a Who’s Who of Nobel prize winners, economists, and academics -- met with the House and Senate Leadership and unanimously advised us that, over the long term, growth-enhancing tax rate reductions are a necessary ingredient in any recipe for rescuing Social Security. Our goal for the 106th Congress should be to rebuild a bipartisan coalition for economic growth.
Today, we are embarking upon a new Congress with a new Leadership, a new agenda, and -- thanks to the hard work and tax payments by the American people -- a balanced budget. It is an ideal time to think anew. Our country, and the Congress, have faced far mightier challenges in the past, and we have prevailed. I have no doubt the 106thwill produce a lasting record of spectacular legislation.
|
