Richard Caplan - State of the Union 1994: The Clinton Administration and the Nation in Profile

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STATE of the UNION 1994

A Project of the Institute for Policy Studies

State of the Union 1994

The Clinton Administration and the Nation in Profile

edited by
Richard Caplan and John Feffer

Foreword by Barbara Ehrenreich

First published 1994 by Westview Press

Published 2019 by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright 1994 by Taylor & Francis, except Chapter 14 ( by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance)

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
State of the union 1994: the Clinton administration and the nation in
profile / edited by Richard Caplan and John Feffer; foreword by
Barbara Ehrenreich.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index.
ISBN 0-8133-2022-4 ISBN 0-8133-2023-2 (pbk.)
1. United StatesPolitics and government1993- . 2. United
StatesForeign relations1993- . 3. Clinton, Bill, 1946- .
I. Caplan, Richard. II. Feffer, John.
E885.S73 1994
973.929'092dc20 93-41134
CIP

ISBN 13: 978-0-367-28868-6 (hbk)

Contents

1. ii

Guide

BARBARA EHRENREICH

Clinton rode into office on the promise of "change." It was a safe, content-free slogan. After all, in recent years, the most radical proposals for change have come not from the Democrats but from the Republican right. "Change" could mean the further downsizing of government and neglect of social problems, or, of course, the reversal of these trends. When they went to the polls in 1992, however, most Americans had a good idea of what kind of change they wanted.

The prevailing sentiment was that the United States had been so busy rushing around the world "doing good"defeating Communism, freeing Kuwait, delivering aid to Africathat it had neglected to take care of its needs at home. We began to see ourselves as a militarily overdeveloped superpower in an advanced stage of domestic declinea heavily armed warrior living, Mad Max-style, in a dilapidated hovel. We could accomplish almost anything abroad, it seemed, but at home the young were undereducated, the infrastructure rusted and rotted, jobs were scarce, crime worsened, and beggars multiplied in the streets.

There had been, in the last year of the Bush administration, an almost palpable sense of foreboding. The Republicans offered either the comfort of denial or the excitement of televised wars; it was always either "morning in America" or another "great test of our nation's will." But the frightening truth kept resurfacing in ways that were hard to ignore or repress: We were no longer "number one"and often more like tenthin measures of public health and standard of living. The Los Angeles riots in April 1991 showed what the price could be for the neglect of the urban poor. Even Hurricane Andrew joined a growing list of "wake-up calls": The United States could mobilize a mighty military presence to beat back Iraqi forces in Kuwait, but it could respond only falteringly to a natural disaster on its own shores. We could house hundreds of thousands of American men and women in the Arabian desert but not in our own ruined cities.

Hopelessness added to the sense of decline. For more than a decade the Republicans had argued, first of all, that nothing was wrong and, second, that nothing could be done about it anyway. This was their oft-stated "law of unintended consequences": Try to assist the poor, and you will only make them more "dependent" and demoralized. Try to regulate the economy, and you will only squelch the productive energies of free enterprise. Attempt to use the government for any purposeother than law enforcement or military actionsand you will merely swell the deficit and the already bloated federal bureaucracy.

All problems should be left to Adam Smith's "invisible hand," according to Republican reasoning. If private business is not interested in cleaning up the environment or providing affordable housing or offering health insurance to the poor, too bad. An op-ed article by an anonymous federal employee, published in the New York Times in March 1991, acknowledged chillingly that the government "is no longer responsible for anything. The unequivocal message throughout the Federal bureaucracy is that nothing is to be accomplished by this Government except the creation of good feelings and the illusion of action."

What had to change, then, was something that went far beyond the realm of politics. At some deep, subconscious level, we had ceased to believe that purposeful change was even possible. We no longer seemed to have any faith in our own capabilitiesthat we could size up a problem, decide what to do, and then proceed to get it done.

The great hope aroused by Clinton's victory was that we might regain this fundamental sense of competence. No one could mistake Clinton himself for a liberal; he in fact came out of the most illiberal faction of the Democratic party. Yet everyone knew that he represented the long-lost idea of an "activist government." Here was the chance, even many erstwhile Republican voters realized, to apply the same "can-do" spirit that characterized our many military interventions to the mounting social and economic problems at home. Clinton was young, smart, and, in marked contrast to his immediate predecessors, clearly engaged by the challenges of governing.

Now, almost a year into Clinton's presidency, most of the optimism and good will that accompanied the inauguration has dissipated. For better or worse, Clinton's precipitous slide in the polls has had little to do with any substantive programmatic issues. He underestimated the opposition he would encounter from the right on what should have been an almost cosmetic matterthe lifting of the military's ban on gays. And he let support dribble away by waffling on dozens of issues large and small. Free vaccines for all children? A meaningfully sized National Service Program? Comprehensive health insurance for all? Maybe ... maybe not.

By mid-year it was clear that even "change" would be too strong a word for what was afoot in Democratic Washington. The economic plan that finally squeaked through Congress could have been written by the bondholders on Wall Street: The campaign theme of investing in America's people and resources had been dropped for a Scrooge-like fixation on the deficit. Instead of an activist government earning its tax revenues through improvements brought about in people's lives, we returned to the notion that government cannot be a means to a solution; it can only be another problem.

In foreign and military policy, the changes were even harder to discern. Military spending remained at Cold War levels, although there was no longer a Cold War going on. No moral principle guided the decision to re-bomb Iraq while ignoring the slaughter in Bosnia. If anything, we were back to the Reagan-Bush policy of using military actions, like hits of cocaine, to lift the national mood and boost the president in the polls.

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