A summer punctuated by reports of the government’s difficulties delivering the mail – mail lost or discarded in bulk – is ending with the public saying “no thanks” to the government’s offer to deliver health care. And last week a fresh infusion of information showed how right the public was.
The White House, after struggling to keep it all secret, released 234 boxes – about 585,000 pages – of documents generated by Hillary Clinton’s 500-person task force that produced the health care bill that one congressman called “a 1,300-page term paper.” The documents included warnings from the Treasury Department that Clinton’s bill could cause “real-world havoc” and “potential disasters” for health care.
Prof. Martha Derthick of the University of Virginia recently wrote, “In many years of studying American social policy, I have never read an official document that seemed so suffused with coercion and political naivete as the draft report of the president’s health security plan that emerged last fall, with its drastic prescriptions for controlling the conduct of state governments, employers, drug manufacturers, doctors, hospitals and you and me.” Yet Washington – Forrest Gump on the Potomac – earnestly, dimly wonders “what went wrong” with the health care debate. Actually, it went right.
Many Democrats had planned to make health care reform the keystone of their campaigns. But Tom Downey, who used to be a liberal congressman from Long Island and who now has (says The New York Times) “close ties to the White House,” is upbeat: “What Democrats have got to do is change the subject and talk about other things on the agenda, like GATT, Superfund and telecommunications.” That advice gives new meaning to “three strikes and you’re out.” Does a Democrat say, “Vote for me, a friend of the Superfund”? It is not a slogan that sings.
Of course there is an alternative rallying cry for Democrats: “On to Port-au-Prince!”
After its health care defeat, the Clinton administration seems to be saying: “Well, then, dammit, if we aren’t going to be allowed to reorganize 14 percent of the American economy, we’ll reorganize 100 percent of Haitian society.” It is dumbfounding, this brisk march toward the most optional military invasion in American history. Who would have imagined that when children of the 1960s Vietnam protests came to power they would seek a quagmire to get waist deep in?
Being liberals, they can’t be wholehearted imperialists, with easy consciences and beguiling candor about uplifting the lesser breeds without the law. But although they lack Kipling’s spirit, they have Belize’s collaboration. That nation and at least seven others will send perhaps 1,000 soldiers, after perhaps 20,000 U.S. soldiers have made the island more or less safe for democracy, or at least for the 1,000. Multilateralism, this is called. Clinton is preparing to campaign for public support for what is being called a “U.S.-led invasion.” (The 20,000 leading the 1,000, a high ratio of leaders to followers.)
The administration, having done its all to pass a crime bill overflowing with money for one of the Democratic Party’s core constituents – social workers – now seems bent on turning the U.S. military into an appendage of that constituency. As Karen Elliott House writes, from Somalia to Rwanda to Haiti to whatever comes next, the U.S. military is being given the “thankless and open-ended task of administering global social welfare.” It is the task of dealing with “the shambles of failed political and economic systems by dispensing welfare to hapless victims.” The debacle in Somalia was produced by “mission creep,” when a humanitarian mission became a nation-building exercise. There will be no “mission creep” in Haiti. It will be nation-building all the way.
If there were no Congressional Black Caucus, there would be no planning for an invasion that will make Haiti a permanent ward – the word “colony” comes to mind – of the United States. Clinton dare not risk asking the whole Congress to authorize the adventure. In a letter to Clinton, 139 House members (86 Democrats, 53 Republicans) said that except in a “genuine emergency that threatens the safety of U.S. citizens” the Constitution “vests in Congress power to declare war and authorize use of force.” Under international law, an invasion of Haiti would be an act of war. One of the principal authors of the letter is Rep. David Skaggs (Democrat of Colorado). He was a Marine fighting in Vietnam when some of the civilians who are now planning the invasion of Haiti were denouncing the Vietnam War as unconstitutional because Congress had not properly authorized it.
In reply to the 139 members, Clinton said he “would welcome the support of Congress” for whatever he does in Haiti. Welcome it, but not seek it. He seeks more collaboration with Belize than with Congress. His letter mentioned “ongoing and intensive consultations with Congress” about Haiti. Says a spokesman for Rep. Ben Gilman (Republican of New York): “As ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Mr. Gilman is unaware of any ongoing consultations.”
Here at home, term limits for Congress is favored by more than 70 percent of Americans. Last week Clinton directed his solicitor general to file a brief supporting a suit against the people of his home state. In 1992 Arkansans, like the people of 13 other states, voted to impose limits on their senators and representatives. Today, because of Clinton’s solidarity with the political class, the residents of those 14 states are having their federal taxes used to pay for a suit against them. Clinton says term limits can be imposed only by constitutional amendment, but of course he knows that leaders of his party will not let such an amendment come to the House floor for a vote.
So here is a five-plank platform for Democrats this autumn: support for GATT, Superfund, telecommunications and an occupation of Haiti, and opposition to term limits. The platform is rickety but you build with what materials you have.
