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Beyond the Contract With America |
| Section: CURRENT ISSUES / COMMENTARY |
| Author: Mark Q. Rhoads |
| Publication:
The World & I Online |
| Issue Date: 6/1/1995 |
| Size: 2,448 Words, 15,646 Characters |
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Even one of the major setbacks for Republicans, the defection by Sen. Mark Hatfield (R-Oregon) that helped defeat the balanced budget amendment by a single vote, may yet be seen as a blessing in disguise. The balanced budget provision has never come so close to transmission to the states as this year, and its eventual ratification by the country seems more promising than ever.
Having boldly set out to keep campaign promises published in the contract, where do GOP majorities in Congress go next and what should be their priorities?
For Republicans to be credible in their assault on the chronic budget deficits of recent decades, they have to go where the money is, even when it will be very difficult politically to do so.
Starting with government pension plans, it is high time to begin heeding the advice of former Rep. Hastings Keith (R-Massachusetts). Keith, who retired from Congress in 1973, has been calling for pension reform for more than 15 years.
Keith is cochairman of the National Committee on Public Employee Pension Systems. His group has long advocated a reasonable cap on the compounding effect of cost-of-living increases in government-employee pensions. Without hurting pensioners, reasonable caps on future cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) and reasonable corrections for the compounding effect could save Uncle Sam more than $400 billion over roughly the next 20 years.
Second, there should by now be a national consensus on the need to reduce the federal bureaucracy, enabling Republicans to send several bills to Presiden...
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...Novarum, St. Paul edition published by the Daughters of St. Paul, Boston, 1891.
Grover Norquist, Rock the House, Vytis Publishing, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, 1995.
Status of Open Recommendations: Improving Operations of Federal Departments and Agencies, Report GAO/OP-95, U.S. General Accounting Office, Washington, D.C., 1995. Electronic version also available on computer disk, no charge.
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(The World & I Online) |
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The World & I Online is a
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Originally published monthly in print as The World & I, our site
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