Who Stole the American Dream? (71 page)
Read Who Stole the American Dream? Online
Authors: Hedrick Smith
1
“Let me now … warn you”
George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796,
http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate/farewell/sd106–21.pdf
.
2
“The GOP’s evolution”
Hacker and Pierson,
Winner-Take-All Politics
, 264.
3
“Zero-sum politics”
Robert Gates, speech, “Brent Scowcroft: Soldier, Scholar and Statesman,” Atlantic Council, December 12, 2011,
http://www.acus.org
.
4
“We are radicals working to overturn”
“The New Right—’Revolutionaries’ Out After the ‘Lunch-Pail’ Vote,”
National Journal
, January 21, 1978, updated February 7, 2011; Thomas J. McIntyre,
The Fear Brokers
(New York: Pilgrim Press, 1979), 67; James Canaway, “Righting Reagan’s Revolution,”
The Washington Post
, March 22, 1983.
5
“I don’t want to abolish government”
Mara Liasson, “Conservative Advocate,”
Morning Edition
, National Public Radio, May 25, 2011,
http://www.npr.org
.
6
“The Right’s ideology [is] vehemently antistatist”
Donald T. Critchlow,
The Conservative Ascendancy: How the GOP Right Made Political History
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), 2.
7
The Republican Party’s steady (if interrupted) march
Hacker and Pierson,
Winner-Take-All Politics
, 293. Their term is “more conservative.”
8
There are many brands of conservatism
Andrew Kohut, Carroll Doherty, Michael Dimock, et al., “Beyond Red vs. Blue: Political Typology,”
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, May 4, 2011,
http://www.people-press.org
.
9
“Siren song of socialism”
“Ike’s Medical Plan a Puzzle to Democrats; Goldwater Terms It Dime-Store New Deal,”
Chicago Tribune
, May 6, 1960.
10
Goldwater lashed out at Ike’s budget
“Republicans: The Backward Look,”
Time
, April 22, 1957.
11
Goldwater struck themes that are echoed
Critchlow,
Conservative Ascendancy
, 43–50.
12
His fervent anticommunism
Nicol C. Rae,
The Decline and Fall of the Liberal Republicans from 1952 to the Present
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 55–70.
13
“More dangerous to our country than
Sputnik
” “Reuther’s Profit-Sharing Proposal Hits Rough Going at UAW Session,”
Chicago Tribune
, January 23, 1958.
14
“What has been frightening here”
Richard Rovere,
The Goldwater Caper
(New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1965), 88.
15
“Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice”
Barry Goldwater, “Goldwater’s 1964 Acceptance Speech,”
The Washington Post
online,
www.washingtonpost.com
.
16
An image of rampant extremism
Critchlow,
Conservative Ascendancy
, 70–72.
17
The finale of the Goldwater campaign
Lou Cannon,
Reagan
(New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1982), 13–14.
18
Paul Weyrich
Canaway, “Righting Reagan’s Revolution.”
19
Helped gear up the New Right
“The Heritage Foundation Mourns Loss of Founding President Paul Weyrich,” Heritage Foundation, December 18, 2008,
http://www.heritage.org
.
20
Wealthy individuals such as David and Charles Koch
W. John Moore, “Wichita Pipeline,”
National Journal
, May 16, 1992.
21
“Government is not the solution”
Lou Cannon, “Reagan Announces, Urges Strength at Home, Abroad,”
The Washington Post
, November 15, 1979.
22
Abolish entire cabinet departments
Doug Kneeland, “A Summary of Reagan’s Positions on the Major Issues of This Year’s Campaign,”
The New York Times
, July 16, 1980.
23
Reagan disappointed the hard-core Right
Hedrick Smith, “Reagan Loyalists Are Worrying About Their Champion’s Loyalty,”
The New York Times
, November 20, 1980.
24
Stop Reagan’s nomination of Sandra Day O’Connor
Jane Mayer, “Politics ’84—Nurturing Conservatives: New Right Tends a New Generation,”
The Wall Street Journal
, December 4, 1984.
25
“Starve the Beast” Bruce Bartlett
, “ ‘Starve the Beast’: Origins and Development of a Budgetary Metaphor,”
Independent Review
12, no. 1 (Summer 2007).
26
“Phony war on spending”
David A. Stockman,
The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed
(New York: Harper & Row, 1986), 454.
27
“No Reagan Revolution”
Hedrick Smith,
The Power Game: How Washington Works
(New York: Random House, 1988), 654.
28
Gingrich personified the confrontational politics
Newt Gingrich, speech, June 24, 1978, cited in “The Long March of Newt Gingrich,” PBS
Frontline
, January 16, 1996,
http://www.pbs.org
.
29
Getting into high-profile scraps
Smith,
Power Game
, 141–43.
30
“Newt had this vision of how”
Norman Ornstein, interview, January 7, 2010.
31
Gingrich built a formidable political machine
“House Republicans Elect Gingrich of Georgia as Whip,”
The New York Times
, March 23, 1989.
32
“This war has to be fought”
Sheryl Gay Stolberg, “Gingrich Stuck to Caustic Path in Ethics Battles,”
The New York Times
, January 26, 2012.
33
It took a titanic effort by Clinton
David E. Rosenbaum, “House Passes Budget Plan, Backing Clinton by 218–216 After Hectic Maneuvering,”
The New York Times
, August 6, 1993.
34
The Senate deadlocked, 50–50
David E. Rosenbaum, “Clinton Wins Approval of His Budget Plan as Gore Votes to Break Senate Deadlock,”
The New York Times
, August 7, 1993.
35
More than half the bills (56 percent) died
Binder, “Dynamics of Legislative Gridlock.”
36
Least productive sessions in half a century
Ibid.
37
“Perhaps the worst congress”
“Perhaps the Worst Congress,”
The Washington Post
, October 7, 1994.
38
To generate public disgust with Congress
Ornstein, interview, January 7, 2010.
39
Right-wing commentator Rush Limbaugh
“F.C.C. Votes Down Fairness Doctrine in a 4–0 Decision,”
The New York Times
, August 5, 1987.
40
Pollster Frank Luntz
“Call-in Political Talk Radio: Background, Content, Audiences, Portrayal in Mainstream Media” (Philadelphia: Annenberg Public Policy Center, University of Pennsylvania, August 7, 1996),
http://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org
;
U.S. News & World Report
, May 1993;
Talk Daily
, August 1995.
41
Limbaugh’s importance
“Republicans Get a Pep Talk from Rush Limbaugh,”
The New York Times
, December 12, 1994; Linda Killian,
The Freshmen: What Happened to the Republican Revolution?
(Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998), 26.
42
“Contract with America”
The account that follows comes principally from the author’s reporting and interviews reflected in the transcript of Hedrick Smith Productions,
The People and the Power Game
, PBS, September 3 and 10, 1996,
www.hedricksmith.com
.
43
A confrontation with President Clinton
“President Vetoes Stopgap Budget; Shutdown Looms,”
The New York Times
, November 14, 1995.
44
A 51 percent majority blamed the Republicans
“As Standoff Ends, Clinton Is Seeking High Ground,”
The New York Times
, November 21, 1995.
45
“The tax collector for the welfare state”
Richard Reeves, “The Republicans,”
The New York Times Magazine
, September 9, 1984.
46
Senate Republicans had tired
Smith,
The People and the Power Game
.
47
Gingrich had to back down
“Clinton Meets Challenge by Offering Budget Plan; Crucial Talks Begin Soon,”
The New York Times
, January 7, 1996.
48
Target No. 1 was Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter
Peter Ross Range, “Thunder from the Right,”
The New York Times Magazine
, February 8, 1981.
49
Specter the defector
Martin Tolchin, “The Washington Priorities of a Philadelphia Pragmatist,”
The New York Times
, April 8, 1984.
50
“If we beat Specter”
James Dao, “Conservative Takes on Moderate G.O.P. Senator in Pennsylvania,”
The New York Times
, April 3, 2004.
51
“Not far right, he’s far out”
Ibid.
52
“Since my election in 1980”
“Specter Statement on His Decision to Switch Parties,”
The New York Times
, April 28, 2009.
53
Toomey won Specter’s old Senate seat
“Toomey at Helm of a Republican Wave in Pennsylvania,”
The New York Times
, November 3, 2010; “Senate Tea Party Caucus Holds First Meeting Without Some Who Had Embraced Banner,”
The Washington Post
, January 28, 2011.
54
“Ideological cleansing”
Dana Milbank, “I’ll Miss You, Sen. Apostasy,”
The Washington Post
, May 23, 2010.
55
Cannibalism—“eating or defeating your own”
“Specter Farewell Speech Slams GOP ‘Cannibalism,’ ” Associated Press, December 22, 2010,
http://www.delcotimes.com
.
56
A $1.2 trillion stimulus
Ryan Lizza, “Inside the Crisis: Larry Summers and the White House Economic Team,”
The New Yorker
, October 12, 2009.
57
A supersized stimulus of $1.5 trillion to $2.4 trillion
Paul Krugman, “The Obama Gap,”
The New York Times
, January 9, 2009; Baker,
False Profits
, 2.
58
Could “spook markets”
Larry Summers, “Executive Summary of Economic Policy Work,” memo to President-Elect Barack Obama, December 15, 2008,
http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/285065/summers-12-15-08-memo.pdf
.
59
He told Obama
Ryan Lizza, “The Obama Memos: The Making of a Post-Post-Partisan Presidency,”
The New Yorker
, January 30, 2012.
60
“All you capitalists”
Squawk Box
, CNBC, February 19, 2009,
http://www.cnbc.com
.
61
Big-time right-wing political donors
Jane Mayer, “Covert Operations: The Billionaire Brothers Who Are Waging a War Against Obama,”
The New Yorker
, August 30, 2010.
62
Far to the right of average Americans
“Poll Finds Tea Party Backers Wealthier and More Educated,”
The New York Times
, April 14, 2010; “Tea Party Supporters: Who They Are and What They Believe,” CBS News, April 14, 2010; polling data,
http://s3.amazonaws.com/nytdocs/docs/312/312.pdf
.
63
In the Republican primaries
“Tea Party Set to Win Enough Races for
Wide Influence,”
The New York Times
, October 15, 2010; “Where Tea Party Candidates Are Running,”
The New York Times
, October 15, 2010.
64
House Republicans cut millions
“House Republicans Vote to Cut Millions from Food Safety Funds,”
The Washington Post
, June 17, 2011.
65
“They are more rigid”
Ornstein, interview, May 25, 2011.
66
“An infantile form of conservatism”
Matt Bai, “Establishment Republicans Look at These Guys and Say, ‘You’re Nuts!’ ”
The New York Times Magazine
, October 16, 2011.
67
“Some revenue in the mix”
President Barack Obama, news conference, White House transcript, June 29, 2011,
http://www.whitehouse.gov
.
68
“Come on, you and I” Paul Kane
, “President, Speaker Motivated by ‘Big Deal,’ ”
The Washington Post
, July 10, 2011.
69
Reduce the national debt by $4 trillion
Carl Hulse, “A Lofty Vision vs. Realpolitik,”
The New York Times
, July 11, 2011; “Boehner Says Obama ‘Not Serious’ About Deficit,” CBS News,
Face the Nation
, May 15, 2011; Kane, “President, Speaker Motivated by ‘Big Deal.’ ” Matt Bai, “The Game Is Called Chicken,”
The New York Times Magazine
, April 1, 2012.
70
The risk was Kane
, “President, Speaker Motivated by ‘Big Deal.’ ”
71
Boehner had to back out
Ibid.; David A. Fahrenthold and Paul Kane, “Eric Cantor Emerges a Key Player in Debt Negotiations,”
The Washington Post
, July 11, 2011.
72
“The Mother of All No-Brainers”
David Brooks, “The Mother of All No-Brainers,”
The New York Times
, July 5, 2011.