Elections herald cuts in social wage
The stock markets of New York, Tokyo, Paris and London surged ahead in celebration of the re-election of President Clinton, and well they should from the point of view of the super-rich.
Stability and continuity in the most powerful capitalist country were also evident in the fact that the Republicans retain control of the Congress. Democrat Clinton and the Republican Congress are already making noises about working together.
What will they be working together on? There were very few clues in what the candidates of either party said during the campaign, which was remarkable for the lack of any "vision" or promise of concrete programs to advance the well-being of working people. No "New Deal" or "Fair Deal" or "Great Society" promises at all, and for good reason. The purpose of the new administration is to further dismantle gains won by the working people and the oppressed in past struggles.
Since the second world war, the two parties of US capitalism have had a bipartisan foreign policy while retaining some differences on domestic policy. Now there is not only a bipartisan foreign policy but a bipartisan domestic policy as well.
Some writers in the capitalist press have taken note of the new situation. The British magazine Economist wrote just before the election: "The presidential race is winding to a close, and in some ways it seems to have been extravagantly fruitless. More cash — clean, laundered, or otherwise — was spent on campaign ads than ever before; but for nearly a year Bill Clinton's lead over Bob Dole has remained more or less static. And yet something remarkable has transpired. Mr. Clinton's Democratic Party has shifted sharply to the right ..."
R.W. Apple Jr., a pundit for the New York Times, explained the same thing in a think piece on the eve of the elections entitled "Nation is Still Locked Onto Rightward Path, Leaving Liberals Beside Road". "No matter who wins ... the returns, like the conduct of candidates great and small these many months, will confirm the nation's drift to the right", Apple wrote.
In 1994, the Republicans took control of Congress, promising a "revolution" on a rightist agenda. The new speaker of the House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich, became the symbol of this "revolution". The Republican radicals shifted the agenda of capitalist politics sharply to the right, giving Clinton and the Democrats the opportunity to distance themselves from the Republicans' more extreme proposals, while endorsing their fundamental direction.
This was clear in the most significant act the president and Congress carried out these past two years, the repeal of the federal government's 60-year pledge to guarantee a minimum safety net for the most needy section of the working class, through what was euphemistically called "welfare reform".
While the repeal of welfare appeared to be a compromise between Republican rightists and Clinton, on another front, Clinton took the initiative to ram through new laws that severely restrict civil liberties, under the guise of "fighting terrorism".
Writing in the New York Times, Anthony Lewis said, "Congress has passed, and President Clinton has signed into law, bills denying all kinds of people their day in court. There has been a flood of court-stripping legislation unlike anything in memory."
These new laws give greater power to the executive to deport immigrants without due process and to restrict the rights of political association of citizens on the grounds of "fighting terrorism".
While the tendency of the executive branch to assume more power at the expense of Congress and the judiciary has marked the US during its rise as the world's foremost imperialist power, the elections have concentrated even more power in the administration's hands.
Newt Gingrich took the heat during the campaign for the more extreme Republican proposals and antics, and gave Clinton the opportunity to appear more humane and as having a soft spot for working people, blacks, women — even as he carried out the bipartisan program against them. A Republican president would not be as effective as a Democratic one in doing this.
Clinton now appears to be "above the fray" of partisan politics and — as the leader of a "centre" in both parties — an imperial president ready to lead the nation as a whole.
But lead where? The New York Times gingerly approaches the next tasks along this road: an assault on Medicare and Social Security. The Times opines: "The biggest problems of the coming decade — how to keep Medicare and Social Security solvent in the face of the demands that Mr. Clinton's baby-boomer generation will place upon them — remained almost entirely unaddressed during this campaign. Aides say Mr. Clinton is all but certain to favor naming blue-ribbon commissions to confront these problems."
The "problem" is presented as due to population growth, which is as demagogic as it is idiotic. Medicare, a guarantee to older people of a minimum of medical care, and Social Security, a guarantee of a very modest retirement income, are presented as facing a "solvency" crisis. This crisis is fake, due entirely to the financial fiction that there are "funds" set up for these programs separate from the overall federal budget, and that as the "baby boomers" grow old, the income into these "funds" won't be enough to match the expenditures.
The scam seems reasonable only because a part of total taxes is "earmarked" to fund these programs. The reality is that they are funded out of the general tax fund, just as the war budget is. We can be sure that the Pentagon's budget will never face a similar "crisis" because its rapacious appetite outpaces taxes "earmarked" for war.
The capitalist class is on an offensive against working people, and part of that offensive is to drive down wages, both direct wages and the social wage, including Medicare and Social Security, which comes out of capitalist profits by way of taxes.
How to do this without creating a backlash is the problem. One aspect of the capitalist solution is to move gradually, so that the impact is not felt all at once. The repeal of the federal welfare guarantee, for example, does not mean the end of welfare. Rather, the federal government will give grants to the states to administer welfare. Already, these grants represent a massive cut in total welfare funding, but in the future the states and city governments will face a deepening "crisis", and the system will disintegrate to where there has been a major cut in the social wage. The new law also has built-in provisions to kick the poor off welfare within certain time limits.
The same will be true concerning the attack on Medicare and Social Security. No-one will say they are for abolishing these programs: no, they just need to be "reformed" like welfare. And the best way to do this is through a bipartisan effort, with recommendations from "disinterested" solid citizens. Hence the blue-ribbon panels.
In this sense, the result of the elections, a president who has won a clear mandate and appears above the fray, and a Congress with a "centre" from both parties that will "work with" the imperial president, is the best of all possible outcomes for the capitalist class.
Which is of little surprise, since the capitalist class owns and controls both parties and the major media lock, stock and barrel.