In an effort to reposition himself above the mire of cash-register politics, Newt Gingrich in 2006 is affecting a new set of ethics, warning that his party is "losing the moral high ground." Still spinning furiously, Gingrich attributes corruption to "bipartisan big government." His solution: Shrink the size of the federal government some more--perennial right-wing code for eliminating social spending and shifting wealth to their constituencies. Having previously proclaimed his target "big-government socialism," Gingrich declared that "government first has to be completely discredited--ethically, programmatically, managerially, philosophically." Regarding his own role in the corruption of government and the genesis of the Jack Abramoff scandal, Gingrich exhibits major memory lapse. However, following the Republican's 1994 ascension to control of Congress, Gingrich's "opportunity society" quickly devolved into government-of-the-highest-bidder.
Addressing slackers who had not contributed to the Republican cause in early 1995, Gingrich warned: "For anyone who's not on board now it's going to be the two coldest years in Washington."
Ralph Nader reported that in the first half of 1995 alone big business laundered an unprecedented $20 million through Republican Party accounts.
Gingrich's cohort in the effort to harness all corporate cash, then-House Whip Tom DeLay (nicknamed "The Hammer" for his efforts) pressured corporate PAC contributions to the GOP. His reasoning: "People that are pro- free enterprise should support people who are pro-free enterprise." In the deteriorating atmosphere of political patronage, the portion of his program called "Project Relief" invited industry to write self-interested legislation placing a moratorium on regulations surrounding worker safety, environmental compliance and labor rights. Hence, the oil and gas industry write energy policy. The self-regulating insurance industry creates Medicare Prescription Drug "reform," allocating billions of dollars of subsidies to HMOs and PPOs in order to privatize Medicare for profit.
Early in the 105th Congress (1997), Republican leaders arranged a private meeting with the Business Roundtable, 200 executives of the nations largest corporations, demanding that they cease contributing to Democrats, or else forfeit access to congressional Republicans and determination of GOP policymaking. Republicans' power grab demanded that big business hire lobbyists with GOP credentials and fire all with Democratic connections. A key player in Grover Norquist's "K Street Project" to install Republican activists in high-level corporate and industry lobbyist positions, it fell to Senator Rick Santorum of the 108th Congress to reward party loyalty by vetting the hiring decisions of major lobbyists.
Typifying the culture of intimidation, DeLay pronounced, "If you want to play in our revolution, you have to live by our rules." The "defund-the-left" campaign has taken direct aim at so-called "liberal" nonprofit groups. High on the Republican hit list compiled by Justice Clarence Thomas' wife, Virginia Lamp Thomas, while on the staff of then-House Majority Leader Dick Armey, were such family planning groups as Planned Parenthood and the Population Council. The "revolutionary" Republicans are "so eager to shoot Planned Parenthood et al, they don't mind if Cancer Care and the American Lung Association are caught in the crossfire," wrote Frank Rich.
Further moving to shepherd all money to right-wing causes, Armey lent his official stationery to a June 1995 cover letter to 80 top U.S. corporate leaders, scolding them for contributing to "anti-free-enterprise" organizations said to support "expansion of the welfare state." Only ultraconservative causes were deemed worthy. Based on long-term right-wing tracking of corporate contributions, Eli Lilly and Co. earned a place at the top of the list of "free-market" companies for its contributions to the ultraconservative Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute. Falling under the scorned "liberal" category, the banking firm of J.P. Morgan & Co. was denounced for its contribution to the Children's Defense Fund immunization program; and the Nature Conservancy, which acquires land on behalf of government agencies to set up parks (therefore placing land "under government control and keeping it from being developed").
Campaign Finance Reform
Republicans have consistently opposed campaign finance reform. Naming campaign finance reform a "Democratic Party problem," Pat Robertson and Sen. Trent Lott have both defended unlimited corporate and individual political contributions. Raising unrestricted campaign dollars is "the American way," Lott told his party's top donors. "Hell is going to freeze over before we get rid of soft money," declared Sen. Mitch McConnell, acknowledging that without it "we [Republicans] would not control Congress." "The solution is more money, not less," echoed Gingrich, arguing that politicians need large sums of money to counter the "liberal bias" of print media and the "socialist" newspaper editorial boards who oppose his agenda. Capitalizing on their advantage as the party able to rake in the largest corporate and special interest money, the Republican National Committee, too, sanctioned unlimited political cash, soft or otherwise, calling it the "free-market" approach to campaign finance.
Any attempts to control campaign financing have been characterized as "rationing free speech," the equation of money with speech effectively rendering the poor voiceless. Kevin Phillips (Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich, 2002) calls it "incredible" that money is equated with speech. Bill Moyers observes that politics has become "an arms race, with money instead of missiles," undermining our system of self-government. Economic plunder has contributed to the widening income gulf, exacerbated by the equation of money with speech, and matched by the disparity of political participation that effectively disenfranchises the poorest, who are abandoned by the system.
Contemporary degraded U.S. democracy with government-of-the-highest bidder is a primary legacy of Gingrich's leadership.
Democracy Under Assault