Gore the Ox
Ever
since Al Gore woke up and opened fire on Bill Bradley, Gore has vacillated
between two lines of attack. One is that Bradley is a big-spending liberal. The
other is that Bradley is a closet Republican who voted for President Reagan's
budget cuts and promoted school vouchers. In Wednesday night's debate, Gore
finally demonstrated how he plans to unite these two indictments. He will tell
voters that Bradley's big spending threatens middle-class entitlements.
Gore's
message reflects a cynical lesson of the past six years: Defense wins. In 1993
and 1994, Gore and President Clinton pursued a bold liberal idea: mandating
universal health insurance. Conservatives thwarted them and captured Congress
by convincing voters that the plan threatened existing health benefits,
particularly the right of patients to choose their doctors. In 1995 and 1996,
Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole pursued a bold conservative idea: reducing the size
of government to liberate the economy and to let taxpayers keep more of their
money. Clinton and Gore thwarted them and defeated Dole by convincing voters
that Republican budget cuts threatened Medicare. To cynics, the lesson of these
wars is that most voters don't care about liberal or conservative principles.
What they care about is losing the benefits they have.
Bradley has proposed to extend health insurance to 95 percent of Americans
through subsidies and tax credits. Ten minutes into Wednesday's debate, a
librarian asked him how much the plan would cost and how he would pay for it.
Bradley said it would cost "between $50 billion and $65 billion a year" and
would be funded either "from the surplus" or "through the enormous savings that
we can get through the application of technology to the medical system," such
as "moving things from paper to Internet."
When Gore got his next chance to speak-in response to a different question-he
turned back to the cost issue. He said his own health insurance plan, which
would ostensibly cover "90 percent of the American people" and "100 percent of
all children," would cost "$146 billion over 10 years," plus "a prescription
drug benefit … under Medicare for $118 billion over 10 years." Citing an
analysis by Emory University, Gore said Bradley's plan "costs $1.2 trillion.
That is more than the entire surplus over the next 10 years. We have to look
ahead and save some of that surplus for Medicare. If we wipe out Medicaid and
wipe out the chance to save Medicare" by funding Bradley's health insurance
plan, we would "shred the social safety net" and "give two-thirds of the money
to those who already have health insurance."
The
next questioner asked about campaign reform, but Gore refused to let go of the
health-care dispute. "Medicare cannot be an afterthought," said Gore. "The only
way to fix Medicare fairly is to set aside 15 to 16 percent of the surplus to
do it now. Otherwise, you're putting Medicare at risk. Sen. Bradley said in an
interview that he would speak to this issue later on, but if you spend the
entire surplus on the first campaign proposal, then that does not leave money
that should be allocated for Medicare." A few minutes later, Gore steered a
question about education back to the Bradley health plan. "If the entire
surplus is spent, then there is no money left over for new initiatives on
education," he argued.
From
one perspective, Gore's attack is conservative. Liberals habitually champion
new programs and entitlements without explaining what they would cost.
Conservatives habitually expose and exaggerate the cost of these programs,
which they translate into tax increases. On health care, Bradley is championing
an entitlement, while Gore is exposing-and, according to Bradley,
exaggerating-its cost.
From
another perspective, Gore's attack is liberal. Conservatives habitually
champion smaller government and tax cuts without explaining which programs
would be reduced and which beneficiaries would suffer. Liberals habitually
expose and exaggerate the suffering caused by these reductions. Gore isn't
suggesting that Bradley's health insurance plan will force a tax increase. He's
suggesting that in order to fund that plan, Bradley will have to cut other
programs, particularly Medicare and education.
The
advantage of this critique is that because it is conservative as well as
liberal, Gore can use it in the Democratic primary and then build on it in the
general election. In the primary, he can tell liberal voters that Bradley's
health insurance plan would suck up all the oxygen in the budget, thereby
suffocating the left's favorite programs. If Gore were to complain that
Bradley's plan required a tax increase, liberals would shrug and vote for
Bradley. By confronting them with budget cuts instead of tax increases-claiming
that Bradley would "shred the social safety net" and stifle "new initiatives on
education" in order to "give two-thirds of the money to those who already have
health insurance"-Gore gives them pause.
In the
general election, Gore can hold the same ground against the Republican nominee.
He can tell moderate voters that the GOP's "risky tax scheme" (translation: tax
cuts) would eat up the surplus and force deep cuts in-remember this?-"Medicare,
Medicaid, education, and the environment." And now that the government is in
sufficiently good shape to stop borrowing from Social Security, Gore can tell
voters that he would protect that trust fund, whereas the Republican tax cuts
would force the government to "raid" it again. Gore also gets the benefit of
triangulation. When the Republican nominee portrays Gore as an arrogant
Washington politician who won't give back the tax money you overpaid the
government, Gore can remind voters that he defended "fiscal responsibility"
against Bradley's reckless spending as well as the GOP's reckless tax cuts.
Gore's
accuracy can certainly be disputed. Bradley has already accused him of
exaggerating the cost of Bradley's health-care plan. Likewise, Republicans can
accuse Gore of overestimating the cost of their tax cut and underestimating the
projected budget surplus. And reporters can question Gore's inference that any
candidate who fails to reserve 15 percent of the surplus for Medicare is
putting the program "at risk" and "wiping out" the chance to "save" it.
But as a political
strategy, Gore's position has an unbeaten record. Hillary Clinton messed with
health insurance and went down in flames. Newt Gingrich messed with Medicare
and went down in flames. Democrats offered more spending and lost the House.
Republicans offered tax cuts and nearly lost it back. The only thing still
standing is the entitlements middle-class voters feared they might lose to
visionaries on the right or the left. For six years, Bill Clinton has stayed
alive by clinging to those entitlements. Al Gore could do worse.
