Return of 'Contract with America'?

GOP lawmakers offer alternative budget to restore 'dream'

Seeking to revive the once-heralded Republican "Contract with America," a group of GOP lawmakers is offering an alternative budget that allows American families "to keep more of their own money and spend it on their own priorities rather than Washington's."

Yesterday, in front of the Canon House Office Building, 25 members of the Republican Study Committee, or RSC, presented a package they call "Contract with America: Renewed."

"We believe it is time to protect the family budget from the federal budget," said Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas.

The lawmaker anticipates critics will deride it as uncompassionate.

"We believe the tough and heartless budget is the status quo budget" that ignores mounting debt that future generations will be forced to bear, he countered.

Hensarling, chairman of the RSC's Budget & Spending Taskforce, co-signed an introduction to 74-page 2007 budget proposal with Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., chairman of the RSC.

The budget alternative, the lawmakers said, "is about freedom and opportunity," which "can only be accomplished through less government, lower taxes, less federal spending, and economic prosperity."

The 1994 "Contract With America," introduced six weeks before the congressional election, was touted as a "detailed agenda for national renewal" designed to "restore the bonds of trust between the people and their elected representatives."

At that time, Pence and Hensarling recalled, Republicans nationwide "embraced a legislative platform of freedom and opportunity, of getting spending under control, reducing the tax burden, and shrinking the size of the federal government."

Republicans credited the Contract with helping the party gain a majority in the 104th Congress after 40 years of Democratic control.

The Contract sought to balance the budget, strengthen national security, and cut taxes while providing over $1 trillion in deficit reduction, stating:

America stands at a crossroads. Down one path lies more and more debt and the continued degradation of the Federal Government and the people it is intended to serve. Down the other lies the restoration of the American dream … we choose the second of these roads. We do it because it's right. We do it because it's sensible. We do it because America's future does not belong to the Congress, or the administration, or any political party. It belongs to the American people themselves.

"Unfortunately," the lawmakers say, "we are once again at a historic crossroads in the nation's future."

"Despite initial successes, Republicans today are confronted with familiar challenges: expanding government, a worsening fiscal position, and an explosive growth in spending and earmarks."

Pence and Hensarling point out that in fiscal year 2005, the federal government spent $2.47 trillion, or 49 percent more than in fiscal year 1995, after adjusting for inflation.

For the current fiscal year, the deficit is projected to be about $400 billion, the largest nominally in history.

The public debt in 1995 was $4.9 trillion but now stands at $8.2 trillion, a rise of 67 percent.

The Republican lawmakers insist this is not a result of the war and economic challenges but "an unwillingness to make choices and tradeoffs."

"We too believe that America is at a crossroads," they said, "and we too choose the path that leads to the restoration of the American dream."