DO HOUSE REPUBLICANS know what they’re doing? Against the wishes of nearly everyone in Washington — House Ways and Means chairman Bill Archer, Senate Republican leaders, congressional Democrats, the White House, former Republican party chairman Haley Barbour — they passed legislation wiping out the marriage penalty in the federal tax code. At the same time, House speaker Dennis Hastert leaked word that Republicans are ready to repeal the earnings limit on Social Security benefits. That’s not all. House Republicans plan to have separate votes soon on tax-free education savings accounts, new tax breaks for inner cities, and elimination of the federal inheritance tax.
In short, they’ve disaggregated last year’s GOP tax bill and decided to take up its most popular parts, one by one. Yes, they do know what they’re doing, and the new strategy is working. After the 268-to-158 vote to alleviate the marriage penalty earlier this month — 48 Democrats voted for it — majority leader Trent Lott changed his mind and agreed to schedule a vote in the Senate. Following Hastert’s leak about the earnings limit, White House press secretary Joe Lockhart said President Clinton wouldn’t go along unless the measure was part of a Social Security reform bill. But Lockhart was wrong. A few days later, Clinton told Wolf Blitzer of CNN that he’ll happily sign a repeal of the earnings limit.
Here’s the point: Boldness pays. Both these measures would likely have gone nowhere this year unless House Republicans had pressed ahead. What House leaders have done is adjust for the public’s lack of enthusiasm for large, sweeping tax cuts. To their surprise, Republicans discovered this indifference last year while trying to stir support for their $ 792 billion tax cut. When Clinton vetoed that tax measure, there was no political backlash. More recently, George W. Bush has failed to generate excitement for his plan to slash taxes by $ 432 billion over five years. In poll after poll, voters have overwhelmingly said they prefer reducing debt to cutting taxes.
Still, some individual tax measures are popular, and House Republicans have glommed onto them. They want credit for enacting them or, should tax cuts be killed in the Senate or by a Clinton veto, at least for pushing them. House GOP members are wary of being labeled “do nothing” in the election this fall. And they desperately want to avoid a repeat of the 1998 election, in which they were expected to gain seats but instead lost five. Then, they had practically no agenda to run on and, worse, were blamed by conservative voters for caving in to Clinton’s demand for more spending.
Another election like that and Republicans, with only a five-seat advantage, will lose the House. Thus, when House GOP honchos met privately with their Senate counterparts in January, they were appalled at the senators’ distaste for votes on tax cuts. Senate leaders wanted to do as little legislatively as possible in 2000, partly to avoid negotiations with Clinton, who invariably gets the better of them. Hastert, House majority leader Dick Armey, and whip Tom DeLay agreed that talks with Clinton should be kept to a minimum. But they decided to go ahead on taxes and simply present Clinton with popular cuts without first negotiating with him.
Above all, House Republicans want to stay on offense. “When somebody leads, others will follow,” says a House official. “We’re leading now and winning big margins, and we haven’t heard anything about Democratic issues like prescription drugs.” At the beginning of this month, the House passed, 341 to 70, the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act over the objection of the White House. Killing the marriage penalty was approved by nearly a two-thirds vote. The Social Security earnings-limit ban may be passed by a voice vote.
There are risks, however, in the House GOP strategy. Haley Barbour, who sends annual strategy memos to GOP congressional leaders, fears Republicans may play into the hands of Senate Democrats. Tom Daschle, the Senate Democratic leader, will be able to decide which tax cuts go forward and which are filibustered to death, according to Barbour. And those allowed to pass will be signed into law at White House ceremonies designed to give Democrats and Vice President Al Gore the bulk of the credit. Democrats are also certain to attempt to decorate the tax bills with liberal amendments. Daschle has already said he’s prepared to attach a Medicare prescription drug benefit to the marriage penalty legislation. Besides, Barbour says, control of the House won’t be determined by a tax bill or two but by which party wins the White House.
True, but why should Republicans let Democrats dominate the legislative agenda on Capitol Hill in 2000? Republicans are already faced with the need to reach painful compromises on hiking the minimum wage, a patients’ bill of rights, and prescription drugs, all Democratic issues. And Hastert has identified “10 items of agreement between Republicans and Clinton” that might be passed, such as expanded IRAs, a tax credit for long-term health care, and increased spending for medical research. These aren’t hot button issues. All the more reason to spend time on those tax cuts that are popular with both Republicans and the public. The alternative is surrender.
Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
