1999

1999

     Last year’s session of Congress was simply awful. Although our side controlled both the House and the Senate, albeit with a very narrow margin in the House, we were unable to cut taxes at all, and had to settle for "restraining" the increase in spending. Nevertheless, the 1999 Republican Liberty Index demonstrates that the American voter will have a clear choice in this year’s election.
     As in the past, the index is based on twenty roll call votes in each of two areas: economic liberties and personal liberties. In the economic liberties component of the index, votes involved spending, taxing, regulating, trade policy, the environment, labor and health care. In the personal liberties component, votes involved campaign finance reform, the war in Kosovo, draft registration, parental choice in education, the 2^nd Amendment, tax-financed art, animal rights, and one-world government. The specific votes are listed below.

Senate Ratings

     The gap between Republicans and Democrats in the Senate, which had grown to an unprecedented width in 1998, grew even more in 1999. The average Republican combined score was 78 and the average Democratic combined score ten. Indeed, only one Democrat, Feingold (WI), with a combined score of 29, was not placed in the "authoritarian" area of our six-part classification scheme.
     The highest combined score was achieved by Don Nickles of Oklahoma, a 95, who, along with Kyl (AZ), got a perfect 100 in the economics component of the index. The lowest combined score was achieved by Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, a 6, who, along with Cleland (GA), Edwards (NC) and Leahy (VT), got a perfect zero (from the authoritarian perspective) in the economics component.
     As always, the economic component showed the greater clarity. The Democrats ranged from zero to 20, and the Republicans from 49 to 100. (There was no such gap on the personal liberties component of the index.) There is a real difference between the two major parties: If it concerns economic activity, the Democrats want to prohibit, mandate, regulate, tax, subsidize, or nationalize it.

Senate Rollcalls
     In addition to the six "perfect" scores already mentioned, 21 Senators made either one bad vote out of twenty, or one good vote. Sixteen of these inconsistent votes involved either the sugar program or the milk marketing program, and were thus obviously due to sectional interest. Two others involved international trade with Sub-Sahara Africa and were cast by the looney ladies of the left coast, Boxer (CA) and Murray (WA), who will allow free enterprise but only if it benefits people with the right skin color.
     On the personal liberties component of the index, the Republicans were not as good, and the Democrats not as bad. The Republicans cannot be said to consistently support personal liberty, but they are demonstrably better than the Democrats. The political spectrum has shifted considerably (but not completely) into a "libertarian" versus "authoritarian" orientation.

Ron Paul

Difficult Votes
     Among those who did very well in the area of personal liberties, the two most difficult votes were deferring to state law on physician-assisted suicide and the Flag Desecration Constitutional Amendment. Among those who did very poorly, only one vote was difficult, the physician-assisted suicide vote. Pro-life sentiment makes it hard for many Republicans to reconcile leaving such matters such as physician-assisted suicide to the states. On the other hand, even the most strident Democrats will defer to individual choice or to state’s rights if the result is pro-abortion, pro-euthanasia, pro-eugenics, etc.
     The more surprising finding is that fewer and fewer Democrats have problems with violating freedom of speech, whether it is desecrating the flag, speech codes on college campuses, outlawing hate speech, or regulating campaign finance. The idea that Democrats are better than Republicans on personal liberties is simply no longer true. Republicans may be inconsistent in their commitment to personal liberties, but they are certainly better than Democrats.

Draft Registration

     Last year, we made another attempt to end draft registration. The last time we tried was in 1995, when the House VA-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee X’ed it out of the budget only to see the full House restore funding. You could say we only got to first base. This time, the full House failed, 187-232, to restore funding, so we got to second base. Unfortunately, funding was restored in the House-Senate conference committee. Hopefully, we will soon get the Senate to agree to end draft registration (a triple), and then get the President’s signature (a home-run).

The Kosovo War

     Congressional action regarding the war in Kosovo may have been confusing at the time, but in retrospect it is crystal clear. On March 11, the House of Representative approved House Concurrent Resolution 42, 219-191, authorizing deployment of U.S. military forces to Kosovo as part of a NATO peacekeeping operation implementing a Kosovo peace agreement (emphasis added). This followed the defeat of Congresswoman Tillie Fowler’s (R-FL) substitute resolution which would have barred deployment, 178-237. The qualification of "implementing a Kosovo peace agreement" was intended to mean that U.S. forces would enter the area as peace-keepers, not as combatants. But this qualification was not a concern to Bill Clinton, who stretches the meaning of words to fit his desires.
     Then, on March 23, the Senate passed Senate Concurrent Resolution 21, 58-41, authorizing air operations in Kosovo. A subsequent motion to authorize "all means necessary" was tabled (i.e., killed) 78-22. Thus, air operations only were authorized by Congress. And, instead of sending in ground forces, we proceeded to bomb the other side into submission. While we regret the resultant warfare, and the NATO-sanctioned resumption of ethnic cleansing by Kosovar Albanians of Kosovar Serbs and Gypsies, at least none of our guys got killed in that God-forsaken place.

The F-18 Raptor

One of the limitations of the index is its dependence on roll call votes. Often, crucial decisions are made in committees, and involve only a few members of Congress. As readers of this newsletter know, we have consistently opposed billion dollar boondoggles such as the Space Station, the breeder-reactor and the B-1 bomber, every one of which has been a miserable failure. Last year, all the action regarding one of the on-going boondoggles – the F-22 – occurred at the committee-level.
     According to the U.S. Air Force, the F-22 fighter (with a projected price tag of $124 million apiece) is designed to maintain the superiority we currently enjoy with the F-15 and F-16 fighters (which cost $45 and $25 million apiece). Key to the performance of the F-22 are two supercomputers which help fly the aircraft, and which give the pilot a "God’s eye view" of airspace.
     While the F-22 is a technological wonder, it seems to us that the Air Force has overlooked one small fact. Namely, there is no longer anybody out there developing next-generation fighters. So, whom are we trying to stay ahead of? (Besides, if the Russian Communists were as smart as the Chinese Communists, they wouldn’t have even tried to keep up with our defense technology, since they could have bought access to everything they wanted from the Democrats.)
     Last year, the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, chaired by Jerry Lewis of California, cut funding of the F-22 from the $1.9 billion contained in the President’s budget. Later, the defense appropriation was approved by the entire House without a separate vote on the F-22.
     As the Senate appropriation provided the $1.9 billion requested by the President for the F-22, the matter had to be address by a House-Senate conference committee. The conference committee basically reached a compromise, providing about $1 billion, $725 million for continuing research and development which includes the production of six prototypes and $277 million for components which could be used for ten more.

     While we didn’t achieve a complete victory, thanks to Congressman Lewis and other realistic pro-defense members of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, we achieved a lot. However, because not one roll call vote was cast on this issue, it doesn’t show up in our index.

Clifford F. Thies e-mail

Past Chairman, Republican Liberty Caucus
Professor of Economics and Finance
  at Shenandoah University