CYBER.XPO.95/CYBER.XPO.95 (Arsenal Computer).ISO/arsenal3/govwatch/crime.txt

Text File | 1994-09-22 | 8KB | 137 lines

Newsgroups: alt.president.clinton,alt.politics.usa.republican,alt.politics.usa.misc,alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater
Date: Tue, 13 Sep 94 10:25:46 PDT
From: Proj Republican Future <[e-mail]>
Subject: Crime Bill:  A Republican Victory
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---------------- Project for the Republican Future ----------------

September 13, 1994

Memorandum to:    Republican Leaders
From:        William Kristol
Subject:    The Crime Bill:  A Republican Victory

Today, in a ceremony made possible by the foolish defection of a few
"moderate" Republicans, President Clinton will sign the crime bill into
law.  We will undoubtedly be treated to a new round of rhetoric about how,
as the president put it when the legislation first passed, "this crime
bill is going to make every neighborhood in America safer."  With all else
crumbling around them, the White House and Congressional Democrats will
seize ever more desperately on the crime bill as their main "achievement"
before the November elections.  But this effort shouldn't work (and won't)
if Republicans build on the extraordinary *success* of our fight against
the crime bill.  We think Republicans should aggressively reiterate our
case against it and commit ourselves to rewrite it next year.

President Clinton hoped the crime bill would prove him a "New Democrat"
and boost his popularity; George Mitchell hoped it would make Democrats
seem "the party that's tougher on crime."  Neither hope has been realized.

The president's own poll numbers have continued to decline.  A Harris poll
from two weeks ago found that a clear majority of Americans agreed that
"the crime bill contains too much unnecessary spending on social programs
and crime will not be reduced."  And last week's CNN/Gallup survey shows
Republicans moving *back ahead* of Democrats as the party that would do
better on crime (by 43 to 39 percent, a reversal from 34-42 six months
ago).

In other words, Republicans lost the vote but won the national debate on
the "crime bill," despite the attractiveness of that label.  And we did
more.  By exposing much of the social spending as "pork" that has little
to do with reducing crime, we laid the groundwork for a more sweeping
assault on such programs.  By demonstrating the bankruptcy and irrelevance
of Democratic "anti-crime" initiatives, Republicans won a clear field for
the advancement of genuine anti-crime efforts focused on prosecution and
incarceration.  And by focusing attention on the log-rolling,
debate-limiting character of "omnibus" Congressional legislation,
Republicans succeeded in reminding the American public why they dislike
Congressional business as usual.

Republicans should stay on the offensive in all of these areas.  And where
the now-enacted crime bill is concerned specifically, Republicans should
welcome -- not shrink from -- fall election campaign discussion about it.

These are the salient points to make:

>The crime bill won't reduce crime.
Even "The Washington Post" agrees on this point:  "What the president
calls the toughest, smartest crime bill in federal history is unlikely to
have a traceable effect on the national crime rate, and some of the
toughest-sounding provisions could perversely end up weakening rather
than strengthening the ability of local and state officials to fight
crime."  Republicans should make this point as forcefully as possible now;
we will be well-positioned to say "I told you so" later.

>The crime bill won't "put 100,000 police on the streets."
At most, the bill promises funding that would support approximately 20,000
police positions, the equivalent of roughly one new round-the-clock beat
officer in every police department in the nation.  And the bill does not
require that all this police funding be used to hire police.

>The crime bill won't build prisons as advertised.
The bill's "prison construction" funding is likewise not required to be
used for construction of prisons, though there is overwhelming evidence
that a substantial portion of violent crime is caused by a relatively
small group of repeat, violent offendors.  These offendors, on average,
serve less than half their sentences -- and then only if they are sent to
prison in the first place. And 30 percent of all violent crime today is
committed by those on pretrial release, bail, or parole.  The crime bill's
"prison funding," on the insistence of Democrats, is actually designed in
large part to encourage "alternatives to incarceration" -- which too many
violent criminals already enjoy.

>The crime bill still allows billions for pet "member items" and
social-welfare programs.
True, some of the wasteful pork-barrel spending contained in the crime
bill conference report was cut.  But plenty remains, as every detailed
newspaper and think-tank analysis makes clear.

>The crime bill's promise of federal funding is false.
The bill does not appropriate a single federal dollar; rather, it
"authorizes" federal spending in the future, *if the money is available.*
 That money is to come from a "trust fund" build on theoretical savings
from removing 250,000 workers from federal personnel rolls -- primarily
through early retirement and attrition.  Past experience is clear:  such
"cuts" and "savings" rarely take effect -- and neither do the programs
they are designed to pay for.

>The crime bill allows big-city mayors and police chiefs to shift their
responsibility for reducing crime to the federal government.  That's the
most important reason why so many of them were so eager to support the
bill.  Democrats promised that the bill's funding would only be "seed"
money for police, prisons, and prevention measures.  When promised federal
crime money doesn't materialize at all, the mayors can blame their crime
problems on the federal government.  And any future effort to stop the
flow of what "seed money" *does* materialize will be denounced.

The Democratic crime bill contains a little of almost everything Americans
hate most about Washington today.  It is a long string of false promises
that insult the intelligence of the electorate.  It is a waste of tax
money.  And most of all, it will make a problem that Americans are
concerned about worse, not better.

Republicans should be sure the American people remember the crime bill
this fall -- and remember, in particular, that it was the Democrats who
manufactured it.  We should also commit ourselves to *fixing* the bill.
Two proposals in the forthcoming (September 27) House Republican "Contract
with America" deserve special attention in this respect:  a law
enforcement block grant initiative designed to permit allocation of police
and prevention resources by *local* officials, and truth-in-sentencing and
prison funding reforms that would ensure the incarceration and
incapacitation of violent offendors.

In sum, Republicans should use the ground we gained in the crime bill
fight to broadly discredit the governing ideology of the current
Democratic Congress -- and lay out a sharp alternative for a future
Republican Congress.

-----------------------------------------
Project for the Republican Future    [phone]
1150 17th Street NW - Fifth Floor
Washington, DC  20036