Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

SUN EDITORIAL:

A new Contract?

Conservatives are trying to take over Congress with talking points, not ideas

In 1994, a group of Republicans led by then-Rep. Newt Gingrich made a big show of its “Contract with America,” a legislative agenda that promised to “restore the bonds of trust between the people and their elected representatives.”

Republicans say that contract helped them win the House — the GOP picked up 58 seats in the election that fall. Although the agenda failed to achieve its ultimate goal as major points were defeated, including a balanced-budget law and term limits for Congress, the party is working on a new version of the contract. As Lisa Mascaro reported in Tuesday’s Las Vegas Sun, a few conservative groups are writing manifestos this election year.

A coalition of conservative leaders, backed by the Heritage Foundation, wrote “The Mount Vernon Statement,” a response to what it calls the “age of Obama.” The statement calls for limited government, individual freedom and “retaking and resolutely defending the high ground of America’s founding principles.”

Tea Party Patriots, a conglomeration of Tea Party groups, is working on a “Contract from America.” The group calls it a “ground-up” proposal and is allowing Internet users to vote on a list of 21 ideas to narrow them to 10.

There are few details in either the Mount Vernon Statement, which paints with a broad brush, or the Contract from America, which offers vague sentiments like cutting taxes and improving “affordability of higher education.”

If there is one constant theme, it is small government and constitutional principles. But what, exactly, do those look like in practice today? Neither the Republicans, nor the Tea Party activists, seem to know. Thus the lack of details.

Republicans ran into plenty of problems with their original contract, which promised “a detailed agenda for national renewal, a written commitment with no fine print.” That was all fine and good in theory, until Republicans tried to put their principles in practice. They struggled to get past the rhetoric and vague plans.

A number of proposals were never enacted, including a proposed balanced-budget amendment. Ironically, once Republicans had control of both Congress and the White House, when George W. Bush was president, the national debt soared to astronomical proportions.

The 1994 Contract with America proposed term limits for Congress, and several Republican candidates that year pledged to serve no more than three terms in the House of Representatives. However, when 2000 rolled around, many Republicans from the class of 1994 found ways to wiggle out of that promise.

House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio, whose biography says he was “instrumental in crafting the Contract with America,” later said that the six-year term limit that some members took “was a huge mistake.”

“You’ve got to be there five or six years before you understand where the bodies are buried, how the process works,” Boehner said.

That sounds like an argument against term limits, and it should serve as a sign that conservatives see these contracts and statements as campaign pieces.

Americans are tired of the same-old politics. They want real reform. Unfortunately, Republicans have shown a tendency to focus on talking points over detailed proposals. Unless the GOP is willing to engage in a real debate about issues, it should spare the American public the platitudes and vague proposals.

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