Outsider in the White House (18 page)

Homophobia is a very serious problem in this country—even within the ranks of Congress. Representative Bob Dornan (R–Calif.) spends much of his time on the floor delivering homophobic diatribes and, while his extremist views are atypical, he is rarely rebuked or controlled by the Republican leadership. Last year, Dick Armey, the Republican Majority Leader, referred to openly gay congressman Barney Frank as “Barney Fag” during a press conference. He later simulated an apology. Just a “slip of the tongue,” he explained. During a debate on the floor totally unrelated to any issue concerning sexual orientation, I was stunned when Representative Duke Cunningham of California made a gratuitous comment about “homos” in the military. I demanded that he withdraw his remarks. Shouting ensued. “Sit down, you socialist,” he yelled. The next day, after gay rights groups convened a press conference to condemn his remarks, he apologized, promising never to use the term “homo” on the House floor again.

These flagrant displays of homophobia have a political rationale. Dornan and company are playing to a particular constituency. Gay bashing has become a cornerstone of the agenda advanced by the Christian Coalition, a powerful element in the Republican “revolution.” During the 1994 election, the Coalition distributed millions of pieces of literature ranking candidates on their “family values” yardstick. Homosexuality is, by their definition, “antifamily,” and so is support for gay rights.

Again, I see the alarming results in my home state. Peter Clavelle, who followed me as mayor of Burlington, did a courageous thing in 1992 when he approved the provision of health benefits for domestic partners of city workers, including gay couples. This was one of the reasons Clavelle lost his reelection bid that year—and that was in the liberal city of Burlington.

The Defense of Marriage Act is a preemptive response to the Hawaii State Supreme Court's anticipated decision in favor of the right of gays to be legally married. The proposed federal legislation would make gay spouses ineligible for federal benefits and would allow a state to refuse recognition of gay marriages legally performed elsewhere. The bill is introduced by Representative Bob Barr (R–Ga.), who personally has a great deal of experience with the institution of marriage. He has been wed three times. Representative Enid Waldholtz (R–Utah), Acting Speaker in this debate, is also well versed in the intricacies of marriage. She is currently pressing charges against her former husband, Joe Waldholtz, who is cooling his heels in the slammer. And Mr. Gingrich himself is no slacker when it comes to marriage. His former wife, whom he divorced after her cancer operation, turned to the local church for help when Gingrich refused to pay child support. These are some of the main defenders of marriage taking the floor in the debate.

The Defense of Marriage Act is supported by
every
Republican except Wisconsin's Steve Gunderson, who is openly gay. In fact, Gunderson provides some of the strongest and most emotional arguments on the floor against this absurd piece of legislation, as does Barney Frank. Conservative Republican Jim Kolbe from Arizona votes for the bill. Several weeks later, because of anger against his vote by members of the gay community, Kolbe is about to be “outed.” This rather quiet, fifty-four-year-old Vietnam veteran, who served in the House for twelve years, suddenly announces to his Arizona constituents that he is gay.

After much sanctimonious breast beating, the Defense of Marriage Act carries on the floor by a vote of 342 to 67. One hundred eighteen Democrats vote for the bill. Sixty-five Democrats and one Independent vote against it. Many people in the House are speculating about the TV ads that the Republicans will develop for use in the upcoming election against anyone who offers support for gay marriage. So does President Clinton. He endorses the legislation.

On August 1, 1996, the Republicans bring their “English Only” bill before the House. This legislation is just one part of their ongoing anti-immigrant strategy, which capitalizes on racial bigotry and general ignorance about immigration. Needless to say, most anti-immigrant prejudice is not directed at British, French, or Canadian individuals who want to become American citizens.

Unfortunately, many Americans don't know the difference between legal and illegal immigrants and, as in other countries with economic problems, xenophobia is intensifying. The issue for some can be summarized by the writing I recently saw on a T-shirt: “If you can't speak English, get the fuck out of the United States.” In California,
Time
magazine reported on a nurse from Woodland Hills who “was pelted with rocks and anti-Hispanic epithets at a high school she has walked by for 10 years without incident.”

The “English Only” bill mandates that all official communication by the federal government be in English. This means that members of Congress from a heavily Hispanic or Polish district, for instance, would be prohibited from communicating with their constituents in Spanish or Polish. Election, tax, and other information needed by millions of citizens would be available only in English. President Clinton indicates that he will veto this legislation, and the bill will not go anywhere—not even to the Senate. But it passes in the House by a vote of 259 to 169. Eight Republicans, 160 Democrats, and I vote against the bill.

The major scapegoating effort of the Republican leadership, however, is not gay bashing or immigrant bashing. It is not the attack on affirmative action or the bills limiting women's access to abortion.

The crown jewel of the Republican agenda is their so-called welfare reform proposal. The bill, which combines an assault on the poor, women and children, minorities, and immigrants, is the grand slam of scapegoating legislation, and appeals to the frustrations and ignorance of the American people along a wide spectrum of prejudices.

Tired of high taxes and spending huge sums of money on people too lazy to work? Tired of paying black teenagers to stay home all day and have babies while you work your butt off? Tired of providing an incentive for Mexicans to skip over the border in the middle of the night? Welfare reform is for you!

The legislation is a real political winner for the Republicans, and has caused a dramatic and fundamental change in the philosophical underpinnings of the Democratic Party.

The legislation approved by the House and Senate is monumental because, after sixty years, it withdraws federal protection from the weakest and most vulnerable members of our society. The United States of America will no longer guarantee minimal support for hungry and disabled children or for the poor. Instead, there will be a massive cut in funds and responsibility will be transferred to the states.

Here is what “reform” will actually accomplish:

•
Benefits will be limited to a lifetime maximum of five years. All recipients must find work within two years or lose their benefits. These regulations take effect regardless of economic conditions in a community or the availability of jobs.

•
Seventy percent of recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) are children, including, at any given moment, about a third of all black children. At a time when 20 percent of all kids in the United States live in poverty, “reform” will push one million more children over the edge.

•
Three hundred thousand children with disabilities will be denied Supplemental Security Income (SSI). The bill substantially narrows the definition of disability for poor children with tuberculosis, autism, serious mental illness, head injuries, arthritis, and mental retardation.

•
Benefits for legal immigrants will be cut by $23 billion over six years. People who play by the rules, come to the United States legally, and work and pay taxes, will be denied Medicaid, SSI, AFDC, and other resources because they were born in another country.

There was a lot of uncertainty in Washington about whether or not Clinton would support this Republican legislation. Some people pointed out that he had vetoed two previous pieces of similar legislation as being too harsh on kids. But I saw a harbinger of his ultimate decision in the administration's rejection of a request to study the actual impact of the provisions on the nation's children. Clearly, they chose not to do the study because it would confirm the fact that large numbers of children would descend into poverty. So my bet all along was that Clinton would acquiesce. A few hours before the vote, Clinton held a press conference to announce that, while he had certain reservations about the bill, he would sign it. The legislation is a step forward, he asserted.

What was especially noteworthy about these past few weeks, especially in terms of so-called welfare reform, was the historic collapse not only of the president, but of much of the Democratic Party in Congress in supporting draconian cuts that five years ago nobody in the party would have seriously discussed, let alone voted for.

That collapse indicates the enormous success that Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, corporate America, and the far right have had in changing the political and social landscape of America. It also makes clear that there is now
no
major political party that represents the poor and the vulnerable.

There is no question about it. Beating up on the poor is now “good politics.” As Rush Limbaugh has told us: “The poor in this country are the biggest piglets at the mother pig and her nipples … They're the ones who get all the benefits in this country. They're the ones that are always pandered to.” Congress and the president have heard Limbaugh's message, studied the polls, and clambered aboard.

It is astonishing how little fanfare accompanies such an historic event. Here is the Democratic Party, a party which prided itself for sixty years on defending the interests of working people and the poor, making a radical shift to the right, and accepting policy which Richard Nixon would have summarily rejected. If, five years before, someone had suggested that a Democratic president and the vast majority of Democrats in Congress would have supported legislation that cut food stamps by over $20 billion, viciously attacked legal immigrants, and terminated a child's right to minimal economic support, they would have been laughed at. But that's exactly what happened. And where was the great debate in the party? Where were the attacks on the president, the demonstrations, the mass resignations from the administration?

The speed of the collapse is breathtaking. Only two years before, in 1994, the Democrats brought forward a welfare reform bill sponsored by Representative Nathan Deal of Georgia. It was the most conservative welfare bill ever supported by the Democratic leadership. (Mr. Deal, by the way, subsequently left the Democratic Party and became a Republican.)

But compared to the welfare bill that the Democrats supported in 1996, introduced by Representative John Tanner of Tennessee, the Deal legislation was a model of humane concern. Despite its many defects, it was based on the assumption that if the federal government wanted to get people off welfare, it would have to provide the education, job training, and child care necessary for people to make the transition and at the same time protect their children. It actually
increased
funding for food stamps, child care, and other programs. Although I had very serious concerns about the Deal bill, I ultimately voted for it, as did most House Democrats, because it maintained federal support for the rights and needs of poor children and their parents, and was clearly the best welfare bill with a chance of passing.

Two years came and went. Gingrich became Speaker, and Rush Limbaugh's brutal attitude toward the poor had permeated both parties. Now the Democrats have lent their weight to the Tanner bill, a far more punitive “reform” than the Deal proposal, which calls for $20 billion in cuts in food stamps and in most respects is a miniature of Republican proposals. It accepts the brilliant proposition that poverty is caused by the poor, and advances as a solution an end to government support for the most vulnerable people in the country. This bill, which is not quite reactionary enough for the Republicans, wins the support of 159 out of 195 Democrats. Eventually, 98 Democrats support the Republican bill, which is passed by a vote of 328 to 101. Significantly, relatively few
white
Democrats vote against the Tanner bill—only ten. Most of the opposition comes from minority members.

In passing this legislation, the Republicans have been successful not only in playing on people's fears but also in exploiting voters' lack of knowledge. The degree to which the American people are alienated and uninformed about the political process is hard to appreciate. In January 1996, a poll conducted by the
Washington Post
revealed that only 40 percent of Americans were able to name the vice president of the United States, 66 percent did not know the name of their member of Congress, and 75 percent could not name their two U.S. senators. Further, 40 percent of the respondents believed that either welfare or foreign aid constituted the largest single expenditure of the federal government. This, at a time when the budget for AFDC was $14 billion—one percent of the federal budget—and foreign aid was slightly less.

So here we have millions of Americans who believe that cuts in welfare are necessary to move the country toward a balanced budget, while they are unaware of the fact that at exactly the same time the Republican leadership is increasing military spending by about $60 billion over a six-year period, an increase
larger
than the savings produced by cuts in welfare.

The Republicans have succeeded in convincing Americans that poor people are responsible for the federal deficit, rather than a series of policies over the last twenty years that have given huge tax breaks to the rich and thrown billions of dollars at defense contractors. Not only that. They have also successfully propagated the view that compassion and human sympathy are not the province of government. For the federal government to reach out and provide assistance to those in need is bad and harmful.