Back in 1994, the GOP offered up a “Contract with America,” committing to a variety of policies and legislation if they got voted into office. They did (though it’s not clear the CfA actually contributed to that, since it came out very late in the election, when the Republicans were already expected to win heavily).
Since then, we’ve seen the name bandied about and varied by different groups. Most recent is a brand-spanking-new “Contract from America,” a “a grassroots-generated, crowd-sourced, bottom-up call for real economic conservative and good governance reform in Congress,” stemming from various “tea party and 912 movements.”
The name seems a bit odd — at first read, it sounds like they’re trying to break away “from America.” But it’s actually a contract “from America[‘s People]” — though who it’s a contract with seems unclear.
Despite efforts by social conservatives, the CfA focuses solely on economic/governance issues, albeit with all the coherence that one would expect from a survey-driven set of basic principles.
Let’s see what it has to say:
We, the undersigned, call upon those seeking to represent us in public office to sign the Contract from America and by doing so commit to support each of its agenda items, work to bring each agenda item to a vote during the first year, and pledge to advocate on behalf of individual liberty, limited government, and economic freedom.
Fair enough. Framed similarly to the CfA, the CwA seeks to get politicians to commit to a set of actions and principles.
Individual Liberty
Our moral, political, and economic liberties are inherent, not granted by our government. It is essential to the practice of these liberties that we be free from restriction over our peaceful political expression and free from excessive control over our economic choices.
Another one of those “everyone agrees with it, as long as they get to define “peaceful” and “excessive.” Though … I’ve mostly heard complaints about the whole economic thing — what sort of restrictions are being placed “over our peaceful political expressions” that I haven’t heard about? Nothing that shows up in the Top Ten list below.
Limited Government
The purpose of our government is to exercise only those limited powers that have been relinquished to it by the people, chief among these being the protection of our liberties by administering justice and ensuring our safety from threats arising inside or outside our country’s sovereign borders. When our government ventures beyond these functions and attempts to increase its power over the marketplace and the economic decisions of individuals, our liberties are diminished and the probability of corruption, internal strife, economic depression, and poverty increases.
The basic discussion of freedom vs security, and collective government vs individual freedom. Again, a fairly uncontroversial set of principles on the face of it. Nobody in Washington seems to be openly advocating for “unlimited government.”
Of course, I prefer the classic formulation: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. That doesn’t seem to be quite as limited as the CfA phrasing.
Economic Freedom
The most powerful, proven instrument of material and social progress is the free market. The market economy, driven by the accumulated expressions of individual economic choices, is the only economic system that preserves and enhances individual liberty. Any other economic system, regardless of its intended pragmatic benefits, undermines our fundamental rights as free people.
Fair enough. The question comes up, how “free” is the market, how much the market is driven by “individual economic choices” (vs monopolies and oligopolies). I’m also not quite sure I buy the implication that “my fundamental personal freedom is my freedom to buy and sell whatever I want.”
From here we abruptly get into the actual proposals. After each are the number of people who voted for them.
1. Protect the Constitution
Require each bill to identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does. (82.03%)
This is a favorite amongst the TPs, but it’s close to meaningless. You think constitutionality is simply ignored during bill drafting and floor debates? And we have a mechanism for determining the Constitutionality of a law — the courts. Given that the courts have given wide latitude to the Preamble in defining what powers the Founders intended to give to the government, it seems the TPs would be better off simply amending the Constitution to block the “General Welfare” clause, or the entire Preamble.
2. Reject Cap & Trade
Stop costly new regulations that would increase unemployment, raise consumer prices, and weaken the nation’s global competitiveness with virtually no impact on global temperatures. (72.20%)
Ah — science by legislative fiat. Always a joy to behold, whether populist nor not.
3. Demand a Balanced Budget
Begin the Constitutional amendment process to require a balanced budget with a two-thirds majority needed for any tax hike. (69.69%)
As soon as every TPer cuts up all their credit cards and pays off all their home and car loans, they can lecture the federal government on how essential a balanced budget is.
4. Enact Fundamental Tax Reform
Adopt a simple and fair single-rate tax system by scrapping the internal revenue code and replacing it with one that is no longer than 4,543 words—the length of the original Constitution. (64.90%)
Because symbolism is the best judge of how to write legislation.
But, seriously — a flat tax? Someone earning $30,000 a year should pay the same percentage of of their income as taxes as someone earning $3,000,000? Are we going to get rid of deductions for charity? How about mortgage interest? Is your retirement income going to be tax-deferred? Should farmers get tax breaks? Which complexities to the tax code that you benefit from are you going to support getting rid of?
I don’t question that the tax code is, in fact, wildly complex. Artificial simplicity is not necessarily a virtue, either.
5. Restore Fiscal Responsibility & Constitutionally Limited Government in Washington
Create a Blue Ribbon taskforce that engages in a complete audit of federal agencies and programs, assessing their Constitutionality, and identifying duplication, waste, ineffectiveness, and agencies and programs better left for the states or local authorities, or ripe for wholesale reform or elimination due to our efforts to restore limited government consistent with the US Constitution’s meaning. (63.37%)
Yes, if only a Blue Ribbon taskforce were appointed (like every other such task force that every administration has appointed) to do a “complete audit” of the billions of dollars of programs and the entire government top-to-bottom, we could doubtless save massive amounts of money and shift most of Washington back to the states where, because the programs are duplicated 50 times over, I’m sure they will be more economical.
Again, everyone wants government to be more efficient. But waving of hands, summoning of a “Blue Ribbon Commission,” and assuming that these folks will be able to (a) properly judge what’s wasteful, (b) what’s best left to the states, (c) what’s actually constitutional, and (d) actually get their recommendations enacted is both naive and, probably, unconstitutional itself.
6. End Runaway Government Spending
Impose a statutory cap limiting the annual growth in total federal spending to the sum of the inflation rate plus the percentage of population growth. (56.57%)
So individuals should be able to spend whatever they see fit, but We the People (the government) mustn’t.
How many TPs would be willing to restrict their spending (and income, so as to stay balanced) to just inflation plus some sort of family size factor?
7. Defund, Repeal, & Replace Government-run Health Care
Defund, repeal and replace the recently passed government-run health care with a system that actually makes health care and insurance more affordable by enabling a competitive, open, and transparent free-market health care and health insurance system that isn’t restricted by state boundaries. (56.39%)
Presumably this also includes getting rid of Medicare, Medicaid, and the Veterans Administration (“government-run health care”).
What makes the TPs think that a Darwinian free-market health care system, where any insurance comapany can get as big as it wants and operate in the least restrictive state environment, will be more competitive and more affordable?
8. Pass an ‘All-of-the-Above” Energy Policy
Authorize the exploration of proven energy reserves to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources from unstable countries and reduce regulatory barriers to all other forms of energy creation, lowering prices and creating competition and jobs. (55.51%)
Funny how “individual liberty” seems to equal “massive profits for not just health insurance companies, but energy companies, too.” And if that means drilling in your backyard — well, hush your complaints, sir, before you harsh the CEO of ExxonMobil’s personal freedom.
9. Stop the Pork
Place a moratorium on all earmarks until the budget is balanced, and then require a 2/3 majority to pass any earmark. (55.47%)
Everybody loves to hate “earmarks,” but all they are is specific funding for specific projects. In and of themselves, they are no different from general legislation, albeit you can point to where they have been blatantly inserted, and everyone can come up with examples of unneeded pork. But those examples tend to be like obscenity, in that one knows it when one sees it, but it’s awfully difficult to come up with an objective legal definition to put boundaries around it.
Better, if you want to stop pork, to increase transparency — require all earmarks and other changes to legislation be clearly labeled as to a requester, and require any changes to legislation be clearly flagged for review between drafts and no final vote taken for some period after the last amendment is made to a bill.
10. Stop the Tax Hikes
Permanently repeal all tax hikes, including those to the income, capital gains, and death taxes, currently scheduled to begin in 2011. (53.38%)
So is the end of a temporary tax reduction actually a tax hike? If I tell you I’m going to give you $5/week for five weeks, on week six am I suddenly robbing you of $5?
Like any “vote for your favorite policy” sort of survey (Right, Left or Center), the above come across primarily as snappy sound bites and ill-conceived policy suggestions, with little real-world coherency where they are specific and insufficient attention to the devil in the details where vague. It’s all stuff that sounds good on the face of it, until you think of how to actually implement it, or who gets to decide what the buzz words like “excessive” mean.
If this were a real contract, I wouldn’t sign it, even if the general motivation of most of the provisions (spend wisely, restrain excess power, encourage freedom) are something I believe in.