Golden Domers, rejoice: All roads in the budget fiasco here may lead to South Bend.
If your eyes glaze when you see the words “continuing resolution,” or “ongoing government shutdown,” be informed that Tim Roemer represents the insight you need on how the whole mess will be resolved.
“And it is a mess right now,” said Roemer, sitting in an office boasting a poster from a syrupy Hollywood homage to Heartland myth, “Hoosiers” with Gene Hackman.
Roemer, 39, a South Bend native and University of Notre Dame grad, is a third-term congressman from Indiana’s 3rd District and member of a dying species–the moderate or conservative Democrat.
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This seeming poster boy for Midwest rectitude has long been for a balanced budget and sensible deregulation, and against pork barrel projects. He’s for much traditional social service spending, such as child nutrition and immunization programs, and federal jobs and education endeavors, such as Head Start. He backs an important tax break for the working poor, the earned income tax credit, which the Republicans want to ditch.
But he’ll look at big-city public housing projects, like Chicago’s Robert Taylor Homes, and offer the sort of critique that would have been unfashionable not long ago in his party.
“It is not conscionable for us to continue to say that Robert Taylor Homes should be continued in the tradition it has been. We should not throw more money at those homes,” said Roemer, who takes a conservative’s tack on alleged waste and mismanagement in welfare.
Many Democrats of his ilk have been in what analysts term marginal districts–and many were wiped out in last November’s Republican avalanche (it’s a mistake to think traditional liberals were the prime victims). Roemer’s is typical and, no surprise, was represented from 1980 to 1990 by a Reagan Republican, John Hiler.
Such Democrats, especially in the South, are switching to the Republican Party. And, more germane these days, they are the ones who hold a key to solving the current mess.
That’s because House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole need their votes to get veto-proof majorities in their respective bodies on any budget deal.
The Roemer type of Democrat, many of whom have coalesced into something called the Democratic Coalition, have a proposed budget solution. It’s not where hard-line Republicans and the Clinton administration are at the moment, but it well could be where they’ll wind up.
On key issues, notably tax cuts and Medicare and Social Security spending increases, Democrats like Roemer, and progressive Republicans, seek to split differences.
They want more modest cuts in social programs than the majority Republicans but, for example, are more flexible than Clinton in giving states more influence with running Medicaid.
Medicaid is a prime example of the view of the likes of Roemer, who have been meeting regularly for the last six weeks with Republicans not marching in lockstep with Gingrich. It was fitting that Roemer was late for our get-together because of a long session with House Republicans, including his comrade-in-budget-arms, Republican Fred Upton of Michigan.
The Republican leadership wants to end Medicaid as an entitlement and “block grant” federal funds to the states, allowing them to decide eligibility and benefit levels. President Clinton wants to keep it as an entitlement.
But the Democratic Coalition, and some of its Republican chums, would put per capita limits of federal spending and provide states with more flexibility, in the process splitting the difference.
On taxes, they think the Republican call for $245 billion in cuts over seven years is wacky. Though their formal position is no cuts until the budget is balanced, Roemer conceded that in internal discussions, they already are up to proposing about $130 billion in cuts, or $35 billion more than Clinton.
And, unlike Clinton, they’re not averse to capital gains reductions. It’s just how they get done. They’ll back them if they help a farmer selling his farm or a middle-class suburbanite selling a home or some mutual funds and aren’t just targeted to the wealthy.
Further, they are pressing for what can sound arcane to outsiders but is a significant technical matter, adjusting the consumer price index, essentially a measure of the amount of spending per household. Many experts feel it doesn’t reflect the true cost of living.
The coalition members call for a slight, downward adjustment that, for example, would mean you’d be getting a bit less in Social Security payments than under the current system.
So, if you’re now getting $10,000 a year in Social Security, and the current consumer price index would bring up a $300 increase next year, the coalition’s change might bring that down to $250. Lots of money would be saved via an adjustment that should be in a final deal.
Roemer has been in Congress for five years and was well-versed in the institution through jobs with former Rep. John Brademas (D-Ind.) and former Sen. Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.). Then there was his marriage to Sally Johnston, daughter of Sen. Bennett Johnston (D-La.). They have two kids.
He is, as one would expect of a God-fearing Golden Dome alum, a proponent of civility in the workplace, notably his own. It’s why he’s uneasy with some of the freshmen Republicans.
It’s not just certain extreme positions, such as ditching tons of environmental regulations or seeking “callous, cold-hearted cuts in the school lunches.” And it’s not just what he discerns as a too-often class-based set of imperatives.
There is also their absence of “comity and civility.” People doubt others’ patriotism. One member urged voting against a resolution supporting our troops in Bosnia. It’s more than gridlock that has evolved, he says with chagrin, it’s deadlock.
“Too often it’s like seeing my kids throwing sand at one another in the sand box. Americans are getting tired of all this and are probably losing patience with all incumbents.”
The freshmen have been a force, for sure, and a reason that he partly chides Gingrich. Yes, he says, the speaker is very smart, very savvy, a real student of the institution and a man of vision, albeit not one Roemer shares.
“But sometimes the freshmen are the horse pulling the cart, rather than Gingrich grabbing the reins. He needs to lead more.”
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As passionate as the mild, controlled Roemer got when asked about the freshmen, he was no less focused when I asked the Big Question: What about that enigmatic Notre Dame football team, headed to the Orange Bowl against Florida State University.
“We have a decent chance of beating FSU. But they have a great offense. It depends on what Notre Dame defense shows up. The one that played against Washington and Texas (very well) or the one which played against Army (very bad).”
“And how big a leadership loss is the injury to (quarterback Ron) Powlus? These are some of the big questions,” he concluded without any hint of jest.
Cokie watch
Campaigns and Elections, the “magazine for political professionals,” invites you to its $365-per-person 13th annual national campaign training seminar and trade show in March that “will help you put all the right pieces together for your next venture!” according to its advertisement.
And what better picture to use in the ad to show off this gathering of insider wannabes (seminars on direct mail fundraising, low-cost TV spots, staffing campaigns and candidate scheduling), with the magazine logo right behind her, than, yes, that’s right, ABC’s Cokie Roberts.