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Originally Processed With FOIA(s): FOIA Number: S S FOIA MARKER This is not a textual record. This is used as an administrative marker by the George Bush Presidential Library Staff. Record Group/Collection: George H.W. Bush Presidential Records Collection/Office of Origin: Speechwriting, White House Office of Series: Speech File Backup Files Subseries: Alpha File, 1987-1991 OA/ID Number: 13844 Folder ID Number: 13844-003 Folder Title: Family, 1992 Stack: Row: Section: Shelf: Position: G 26 23 3 1 SEP-24-1992 15:56 FROM US DEPT OF EDUCATION TO 94566218 P.02 OF EDUCATION UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Jeductor OFFICE OF POLICY AND PLANNING UNITED STATES OR AMERICA THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY September 24, 1992 copyl specificites researches NOTE TO SENIOR OFFICERS: Please find attached a briefing paper regarding the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report, Education at a Glance, released yesterday. You will note that there are differences between the OECD report calculations and those we have used previously. The attached briefing paper outlines how and why. Please call with any questions. Suio Bruno V. Manno 400 MARYLAND AVE.. S.W. WASHINGTON, D.C. 20202-8100 SEP-24-1992 15:56 FROM US DEPT OF EDUCATION TO 94566218 P.03 BRIEFING NOTES ON INTERNATIONAL PER-PUPIL SPENDING COMPARISONS BY OECD WE TRADITIONALLY COMPARE OURSELVES WITH OUR MAJOR INDUSTRIAL COMPETITORS, i.e., the G7 nations = [the U.S.], Germany, France, Japan, the U.K., Italy and Canada. WHAT WE NOW SAY on the issue of international per-pupil spending comparisons on elementary and secondary education: The United States spends more on elementary and secondary education per- pupil than any other nation except Switzerland. WHAT WE SHOULD SAY & WHY: The United States should spend whatever it takes to help our children live, work, and compete with children growing up around the world. We now spend as much, or more. per-pupil than any of our major international competitors on elementary and secondary education. for example, about 50 percent more than Japan or Germany. The new OECD report reminds us that money alone is not the answer. though we spend more than our major competitors on schooling, we're at (or near) the bottom in achievement. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released on September 23rd, a publication called Education at a Glance-an international comparison of student outcomes, participation, and educational spending partially supported by ED/NCES funds. There are some differences between the OECD method of figuring per-pupil spending in various nations and our method, such that OECD ranks a total of five nations above the U.S. in per-pupil spending. (These are, in order: Luxembourg, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, and Canada) THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN OECD's SPENDING FIGURES AND OURS: Measuring Different Countries: OECD measured some countries that we didn't (e.g., Luxembourg), and we measured some that they didn't (e.g., Australia and New Zealand). 1 SEP-24-1992 15:57 FROM US DEPT OF EDUCATION TO 94566218 P.04 Reporting Years: Some countries report spending for 1988, and others for 1989. Moreover, some report using figures for their fiscal year, while others use calendar year. Of 19 nations in the OECD survey, only the U.S. and Japan reported fiscal year 1988; had the U.S. reported fiscal year 1989 expenditures, it would have ranked 3rd out of the 19 countries on the OECD list (behind Luxembourg and Sweden), instead of 6th, and 1st among G7 nations. Private Expenditures: The OECD calculation, which counts both public and private school students, significantly understates resources actually provided to U.S. students because private sources account for a substantial amount of spending, and are not included in the figures we report. In most countries, public funds are routinely spent on private school students, whereas, in the U.S., with few exceptions, private schools cannot receive or spend public funds. IN SUM The United States spends as much, or more, per-pupil than any of our major international competitors on elementary and secondary education. According to the OECD report, we spent significantly more than any G7 nation except Canada, which spent about the same as us. (But if we had reported for FY89, as did Canada, instead of FY88, Canada would rank clearly below us.) There is no direct correlation between high education spending and high education achievement; to be sure, in achievement, we are way behind countries that we outspend. Most of the countries whose students consistently outperform ours on international assessments (e.g., Japan, France, and the Netherlands) spend far less per-pupil than we do. Viewed from an international perspective, it cannot be said that more money will "fix" what is wrong with American education. We get a lot less for our money than other countries. In the recent International Assessment of Educational Progress, U.S. 13-year-olds ranked 14 out of 15 countries' students in mathematics knowledge. Our students ranked 13th in science knowledge. 2 SEP-24-1992 15:57 FROM US DEPT OF EDUCATION TO 94566218 P.05 INTERNATIONAL PER-PUPIL SPENDING COMPARISONS: OPP/ED & OECD OPP/ED TABLE RANK COUNTRY YEAR AMOUNT (U.S.$) 1 Switzerland 1988 4,834 2 (G7) United States 1988 4,131 3 Denmark 1988 4,007 4 (G7) Canada 1988 3,618 5 Sweden 1988 3,616 6 Austria 1988 3,391 7 Norway 1988 3,370 8 (G7) United Kingdom 1988 2,897 9 Belgium 1987 2,522 10 (G7) Germany (FRG) 1988 2,486 11 (G7) France 1988 2,474 12 Netherlands 1988 2,413 13 (G7) Japan 1988 2,243 14 Australia 1987 2,195 15 New Zealand 1988 1,676 16 ireland 1987 1,405 OECD TABLE 1 Luxembourg CY88 5,190 2 Sweden FY89 4,606 3 Switzerland CY88 4,089 4 Norway CY88 3,945 5 (G7) Canada FY89 3,927 6 (G7) United States FY88 3,843 7 Denmark CY88 3,726 8 Finland CY88 3,557 9 Belgium CY88 2,838 10 Austria CY88 2,812 11 (G7) Italy CY88 2,546 12 (G7) United Kingdom FY89 2,430 13 (G7) France CY88 2,360 14 (G7) Japan FY88 2.272 15 (G7) Germany (FRG) CY88 2,263 16 Netherlands CY88 2,094 17 Ireland CY88 1,412 18 Spain CY88 1,354 19 Portugal CY88 1,295 NOTES: 1. For OPP/ED Table, U.S. data were taken from the Digest of Education Statistics, 1991. All other data are from the UNESCO Statistical Yearbook, 1991. U.S. figures are for K-12 only. 2. As far as possible, data in OPP/ED Table refer to the school years beginning in the calendar year indicated. Reporting years in OECD Table are either fiscal or calendar years as indicated. 3. a) Not included in OPP/ED calculation but included in OECD: Luxembourg, Finland, Italy, Spain and Portugal. b) Not included in OECD calculation but included in OPP/ED: Australia and New Zealand. 4. N.B.: Had the U.S. reported FY89 (as opposed to FY88) for OECD calculation, the amount would be $4,221; this would rank the U.S. 1st among G7 nations, and 3rd overall. SEP-24-1992 15:58 FROM US DEPT OF EDUCATION TO 94566218 P.06 UNITED STATES STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION NEWS $ FOR RELEASE: 6 p.m. EDT Contact: Melinda Kitchell September 23, 1992 (202) 401-1008 STATEMENT BY U.S. SECRETARY OF EDUCATION LAMAR ALEXANDER regarding OECD report on international expenditures The United States should invest whatever it takes to help our children live, work, and compete with children growing up around the world. The OECD report reminds us that money alone is not the answer. The U.S. today spends more on elementary and secondary education per pupil than any of our major international competitors, for example about 50 percent more than Japan and Germany. ### Family Research Council ® A division of Focus on the Family Photo Copy Preservation Family Research Council A division of Focus on the Family Gary L. Bauer President 700 Thirteenth Street, NW, Suite 500 Washington, DC 20005 (202) 393-2100 FAX (202) 393-2134 Family Research Council ® Gary L. Bauer, President FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL STAFF RESPONSIBILITIES Chuck Donovan Executive Staff Director Abortion Parental Notification Wedfare Family Redefinition Bob Knight Director of the Cultural Studies Project National Endowment for the Arts Media Homosexual Movement Elizabeth Law Director of Government Relations Legislative Issues Pornography Victims' Compensation Act Freedom of Choice Act Bill Mattox Director of Policy Analysis Economic and Tax Issues Work and Family Policy Child Care Bob Morrison Editor, Washington Watch Education Women in Combat David Wagner Editorial Director Legal Issues Divorce Pornography Charmaine Yoest Policy Analyst Family Formation Teen Sexual Activity and Pregnancy Sex Education School-Based Clinics Adoption Family Research Council A division of Focus on the Family 700 Thirteenth Street, NW, Suite 500 Washington, DC 20005 (202) 393-2100 FAX (202) 393-2134 Reader's 7IST YEAR JULY 1992 An article a day of enduring significance, in condensed permanent booklet form In politics today, do The Family Gap you usually consider yourself to be liberal of 67% conservative? By FRED BARNES CONSERVATIVE A new Reader's Digest poll has uncovered a wide identify themselves as conservative. gulf in attitudes between families with children and On the conservative-liberal question, LIBERAL couples without children or singles. This Family a 19-point gap separates them from READER'S DIGEST Gap may be the most important force in American singles. Surprisingly, age is no factor 50% 43% politics today-more potent than the gender gap or the here, as the adjacent chart illustrates. POLL generation gap. To understand the family gap is to Under-35 marrieds with children are understand how America notes in national elections, predominantly conservative, while because, contrury to perception, families with children represent the country's most under-35 singles shade liberal. powerful voting bloc. Here is Roving Editor Fred Barnes's report. On the explosive issue of abor- tion, marrieds with children are split, though they are far more ATCHING my daughter play with children are far more conser- likely to describe themselves as pro- W soccer one day, I suddenly vative and religious than singles life than are singles, who are over- realized how different my and marrieds without kids. These whelmingly pro-choice. life is from that of my single and parents especially hold traditional Married blacks with children 25% childless friends. They travel, eat moral and social values that non- are sometimes even more culturally out, sleep late, go to parties, take in parents sometimes dismiss as out- conservative than their white coun- movies and plays, do whatever they dated. terparts, although fewer identify want. I go to school events, attend Political analysts consider a five- themselves as political conservatives. church, cat at family restaurants, to ten-point gap in the opinions of Campaign Lessons. The find- SCC movies my kids want to. And population groups to be significant. ings of the Reader's Digest poll I've grown more conservative than The family gap in the Reader's among adults 25 and older have my friends without children. Digest poll ranged as high as 17 to enormous political significance. The Reader's Digest poll shows 21 points. "As people marry and have fam- I'm not alone. Conducted by The The poll uncovered these strik- ilies, they tend to vote more heavi- Wirthlin Group, under the super- ing findings: ly," says Curtis Gans, director of UNDER 38 UNDER 36 vision of Richard B. Wirthlin, the A sizable majority of people the Committee for the Study of the SINGLE MARRIED WITH poll found that married people who are married with children American Electorate. They vote CHILDREN 48 PHOTO: (FAMILY REQUESTED: 0 WALTER 49 in higher percentages than singles in shaping political views than mar- enty-four percent of mar- or marrieds with no kids. riage is. The family gap dwarfs the ried people with children Family status of U.S. population, marriage gap. believe a mother of small And there are more of them. age 25 and older "You think differently when you kids should raise them full Contrary to claims, the traditional family has not vanished. Its death have kids," says-Gwendolyn Webb, time if there is no financial notice is based on the oft-repeated 2 46-year-old salesclerk in Macon, necessity to work. Only 9% but misleading statistic that only 26 about 54 percent of sin- DIVORCED Ga,, who was one of the more than percent of American households 1000 randomly selected partici- gles and marrieds with- 9% consist of two parents with kids pants in the poll. Webb has two out children hold that WIDOWED MARRIED under 18 years old living at home. grown children. opinion. SPOUSE Taxpayer-funded ABSENT 4% It's rarely noted that these families "I've become more conservative 57% constitute 41 percent of the total since having children, particularly grants by the Na- when it comes to drugs,' says Terry tional Endowment MARRIED WITH population. And that figure doesn't 13% include millions of two-parent fam- Browning, 38, an oil-field worker for the Arts for SINGLE CHILDREN ilies whose children have grown up in Odessa, Texas, and the father works viewed as and left home. of three. obscene are opposed Married couples with kids are a Sixty-four percent of the mar- by almost all popula- political powerhouse, a voting bloc of ried people with children identify tion segments, but op- 8% about 92 million people, 57 percent of themselves as generally conserva- position registered by MARRIED WITHOUT all Americans over 25. By contrast, tive, as opposed to 27 percent gen- married people with CHILDREN only 21 million Americans over 25 crally liberal. This wide margin- children is a whopping 78 are single, and only around 13 mil- better than two-to-one-narrows to percent-17 percentage points lion are married without children. a dead heat among singles, who more than singles. These grants infu- U.S population, 25 and olders A swing of ten percent in the respond 45 percent conservative, 46 riate parents like John Kindred, 43, a 160,943,000 family vote could shift nine million percent liberal. bridge-repair supervisor in Warrens- votes-more than enough to change The family gap is most pro- burg, N.Y. "We've got enough of It's no surprise that married peo- the outcome of most Presidential nounced on values that speak to the that garbage coming from the un- ple with children are especially up- elections. (George Bush won in 1988 hopes and fears Americans have for derground," he says. "The govern- set about drug use. A family gap of by seven million votes.) A ten-per- their children. Bonnie Romesberg, ment shouldn't subsidize it." 13 points separates them from sin- cent swing among singles and mar- 28, of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, for Only 28 percent of married people gles on the issue of legalizing mari- example, says there was no doubt she with children think homosexuals rieds without children could shift juana. "It's bad enough kids can get only a little over three million votes. would quit her job as a dental techni- should have the right to marry. For- marijuana $0 easily now," says "You Think Differently." The cian when her first child arrived four ty-four percent of marrieds without Ethel Ponder of Newburgh, N.Y., Reader's Digest poll indicates that years ago. Now she has 1 second kids and 46 percent of singles think who is against legalization of the the very act of rearing children in a child. "They need the guidance right homosexuals should have that right. drug. "My four children are grown, traditional setting is the crucial fac- now when they're growing up," she The issue of homosexual marriage but I'm concerned about my grand- tor behind the family gap. On issue says. Romesberg, whose husband is produces an especially fervent reac- children." Elouise Ferguson, 51, of a cement finisher, intends to be a tion in some families. "Government Cleveland, the mother of three, after issue, the beliefs of married people without children are closer full-time homemaker through her should not sanction something that fears drug legalization "would to those of single people than to children's teen-age years. is morally wrong," declares Mary spread drug use among children." marrieds with kids, showing that The family gap is pronounced on Jones, 45-year-old mother of two in Both Ponder and Ferguson are parenthood is a stronger influence this question-a full 21 points. Sev- Burlington, Ky. black. They reflect the predomi- 5ʳ 50 68% Hontosexual couples should have the If there is no financial necessity for her to 74% right to get married. work, a mother of small children should 52% stay home full time to raise the children. 50% 46% The government Generally speaking 44% should not support AGREE 54% would you consider with tax dollars THE FAMILY GAP DISAGREE 53% yourself to be pro-life, artists whose works pro-choice or 28% are obscene or 78% 44% 72% neutral on the pornographic. In politics today, do you usually 41% abortion issue? consider yourself 65% 64% 64% 61% to be liberal or conservative? 45% 24% 49% 48% SINGLE MARRIED MARRIED WITHOUT WITH 46% 42% CHILDREN CHILDREN 38% DISAGREE AGREE 32% 27% 28% SINGLE MARRIED MARRIED WITHOUT WITH 25% CHILDREN CHILDREN 20% CONSERVATIVE AGREE PRO-LIFE LIBERAL From talephone polls of more thom 1001 PRO-CHOICE DISAGREE SINGLE MARRIED MARRIED WITHOUT WITH Americans age 25 and older the for SINGLE MARRIED MARRIED SINGLE MARRIED MARRED CHROREN CHILDREN Render's Digest by The Wishin Group. WITHOUT WITH WITHOUT WITH Morgin d BITTH is 3% Responses of CHRDREN CHILDREN CHEDREN CHILDREN "Dow't "mon" If "He opinion" are not neted. nantly traditional values expressed gious. Nearly half (49 percent) at- Those married with children tend the board, for example, that the in the poll by married blacks with tend church or synagogue every to favor (52 percent to 40) a consti- economy is better served by less children. For example, only four week or almost every week. Only tutional amendment "to protect the government involvement (67 per- percent of blacks who are married 28 percent of marrieds without kids right of the unborn child to live," cent, versus 28 percent for more with children favor legalization of and 36 percent of singles go to while singles oppose the proposal government). By a narrower margin marijuana, compared with 18 per- church as often. Nearly 80 percent (55 percent to 42). Married people (54 percent to 43), Americans believe cent of whites married with chil- of married people with children say with children oppose using tax dol- environmental improvements must dren. Only 19 percent of married prayer is an important part of their lars for abortions (58 percent to 38); be made even if that causes lost jobs black parents think homosexual lives. The figure is 60 percent for singles are closely divided. As is the and higher prices. But in most cases, couples should have the right to get married without children and 72 case with many other issues, the when the issue is one of culture or married, compared with 28 percent percent for singles. family gap exists regardless of age. values, the family gap emerges, of whites in that category. Positions on abortion shift with The family gap loses some of Glitz VS. Tradition. The poll Overall, married people with the wording of questions, but a its dominance outside the cultural findings call into question percep- children also tend to be more reli- family gap exists throughout. arena. There is agreement across tions on what constitutes America's 53 52 READERS DIGEST dominant culture. Television, pop children find safe, affordable sin- music, magazines and movies often gle-family housing. That's where glorify the glitzy, permissive values traditional values, conservatism of New York, Los Angeles and a and religion prosper. And that's few other cities. "You have a,gath- where victorious Presidential can- ering of singles there," explains po- didates won impressively. litical analyst Michael Barone. "Only when issues relate to val- "They have different attitudes." ues do you effectively move voters' Their attitudes may be fashion- behavior," says pollster Witthlin. able, but families with children "That's how Presidential elections aren't buying. "It's almost like dif- are decided." George Bush's cam- ferent groups of Americans live in paign in 1988 was based largely on different countries," Barone adds. an appeal to traditional values. He "They have little contact with each persuaded voters that he shared other." their values on crime, punishment Families who hold to traditional and patriotism, and that Michael values get scant media attention, Dukakis didn't. He exploited the and the little they get is often scorn- family gap and won. ful. Still, their values thrive-not in For married couples with chil- trendy restaurants and boutiques, dren, politics is a sideshow. They but all over America in homes with vote, but the noisy protests and children. The old virtues are quiet- policy squabbles that attract mediá ly exalted in suburbs and rural attention have little impact on their areas and urban residential neigh- lives. They've got other things to borhoods where families live. concentrate on. Indeed, families with kids con- Recently 1 took my daughter to 2 stitute an amazing phenomenon: a soccer game in a faraway suburb. mass counterculture. They are also Beside the field, a knot of mothers a large, cohesive voting bloc. Nearly chatted before the game began, but half of American voters live in the not about Madonna or fashion fads. subarbs. Distant suburbs, or ex- Instead, they were talking about urbs, are among the fastest-grow- soccer: learning skills, playing ing communities in America. hard, playing fair-values impor- That's where married folks with tant for their children. Reprints of this article are available. See page 202. Reason Wry EACH YEAR, our county fair has a demolition derby where contestants crash their old jalopies together until only one is left. The winner receives a cash prize. "I've got to win," one young contestant was overheard to say. "The payment is due on this car tomorrow." -Contributed by Ronald Klaws 34 TESTIMONY BEFORE THE REPUBLICAN PARTY PLATFORM COMMITTEE Salt Lake City, Utah, May 26, 1992 Gary L. Bauer, President, Family Research Council Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a great privilege to be part of the process of crafting the Republican Party's vision of the future. Mr. Chairman, the Grand Old Party has had a rich and varied history. It burst on the political scene in 1856 as the party defending the individual's right to be free from the evil, anti- life, anti-family institution of slavery. During the American Industrial Revolution that followed, the party championed the small entrepreneurs whose efforts created jobs and prosperity. With the coming of the Great Depression, however, the party began to lose some of its moorings. It was too quick to accept the other party's diagnosis that the Depression was the result of capitalism itself, rather than of ill-considered government intervention. Whatever the reason, from the 30s through the 60s, the Republican Party had relatively little to contribute beyond putting a Wall Street veneer on the welfare state. -2- Starting in the mid-seventies, however, the Republican Party began to recover its historic, populist voice. In a political atmosphere that was thick with malaise, accommodationism, and an ever-expanding state, the GOP began once again to speak of family, church, neighborhood -- and the inalienable rights of the weakest among us. The result: twelve years of Republican administrations. But these victories are not ours by right. We have to earn them over and over again. The recent events in Los Angeles, and the renewed attention to the plight of the urban underclass, show that we have to proclaim yet again how the fraudulent political compassion of our opponents has worsened these problems, and how the family-centered, non-statist policies that we favor can help dig us out. The family is key to the functioning of any decent society. If we implement policies that hurt the family, we needn't expect to have safe streets, good schools, or general prosperity. Throughout recorded history, wherever governments have not forcibly intervened, the family has been the fundamental unit of society. A government that tries to build society on any other fundamental unit is, by definition, a government both revolutionary and totalitarian. Unsurprisingly, revolutionary totalitarian governments have always tried to abolish the family, seeing it as rival to the government's own power. -3- Totalitarian assaults on the family have all failed; but where the utopians of the far right and the far left have failed, the social engineers of the center-left -- modern American liberalism have very nearly succeeded. A quarter century ago, this nation embarked on an experiment called the Great Society. Its goal was nothing less than to abolish poverty and its effects in our nation. Throughout that quarter century -- and in spite of the Reagan Administration -- the reigning assumption of policy-makers has been that law and order and prosperity and justice are somehow the natural state of things: they just happen. This assumption is wrong. In reality, law, order, prosperity and justice have to be created by a complex web of spontaneously arising institutions, beginning with the family and the local community. But Great Society policy-makers thought they knew better. They thought of poverty as merely lack of money, and therefore remediable through government transfer payments; and they thought of all other social pathologies as susceptible of solutions through government therapeutic programs. Give disadvantaged people cash and social services, the reasoning went, and poverty and its effects will then be erased -- by definition. -4- That's not the way it works. Law, order, prosperity and justice are not the natural state of human affairs. They are the result of centuries of family life, community life, religion, and tradition. Societies, like the human species, develop immunities over time. When government policies undermine society's natural antigens -- such as the family, the community, religion -- the result is that society loses its immunity to poverty, dependency, violence, chaos. Not that society was ever completely immune from those things -- obviously not. But all these problems have increased dramatically since our government began systematically to eliminate them. And how has government undermined the crucial intermediate institutions? In a variety of ways, implicating various levels and branches of government. Religion was attacked by means of a brand- new establishment clause jurisprudence, first introduced by the Supreme Court in 1947 (with critical help from an ACLU brief), which treated religion as a sort of toxin, from which government had to protect citizens, especially the most impressionable among us. Other traditional institutions were attacked through substitution. When government offers to substitute for the real thing, and puts enough money behind its substitute to make it attractive, the real thing loses. -5- Consider the predicament of a young, poor, unmarried mother. In a pre-welfare-state society, there would be heavy societal pressure on the child's father to marry the mother and work to provide for the new family. Friends and extended family would have been around to ease the transition to adulthood and family life. Thanks to relatively low taxes, a high percentage of the young father's earnings would have gone to meeting family expanses and putting away some savings for the big climb out of poverty. Historically -- and even today -- family formation is the most effective way out of poverty. But today, it hardly ever happens. Today, the government offers the unmarried mother an attractive contractual arrangement: the equivalent of somewhere between $8,500 and $15,000 per year in combined welfare benefits, on condition that the young woman not work for pay, and not marry an employed male. You can see the good-hearted but empty-headed reasoning that went into this policy: jobless and husbandless mothers need more aid, don't they? Well, yes. So the government offers substitutes for jobs and husbands. And more and more young women choose to do without either. -6- What the government offers her is a classic contract. In consideration of the government's offer of a package of benefits, the mother agrees not to engage in the activities that are crucial to the formation of a decent society. Government has bargained for social breakdown, and it has gotten it. Of course there are heroic people in the inner cities -- usually with the help of strong churches -- who reject the government's offer and do the right thing. But such behavior, while morally correct, is economically irrational in a welfare state. In most cases, the amount of income that a poor working family can keep is not enough to make people choose that option, once you figure in the fact that employment and family life require real work, while welfare permits leisure -- indeed, requires it. Notice what welfare does in this typical case. It transforms family formation from an economically rational choice to an economically irrational one, one that people would make only for non-economic reasons, such as religious conviction. Thank God, some people do defy the incentives and choose right. But it's asking too much of any group of human beings to expect them to defy economic incentives on a massive scale. And what happens to the otherwise marriageable men under this system? The system makes them economically useless. Their potential role as husbands and co-custodial fathers is squeezed out -7- by the government, so they seek other outlets for masculine energy and other sources of affirmance: gang warfare, street life, the easy riches of the drug trade. Meanwhile the children grow up, as we all do, with role models based on what they see. For girls, multi-generational welfare dependency: you grow up and marry the government. For boys: gang leaders, drug kingpins. I'm not making this up, nor am I relying exclusively on white policy analysts sitting at word processors in air-conditioned offices. Black pastors and black community leaders all confirm, with personal details, what one reads in the policy analysts' charts. With so much attention rivetted to the problems of the inner cities today, the Republican Party has an historic opportunity to point loudly and clearly to the failures of the policies initiated during the other party's last major turn in the White House. This is also an opportunity to sound a clarion call on the subject of values. Not that values come from government -- that's the kind of Great Society thinking that we need to get away from. But political leaders need to talk about values. And we need to dismantle the corrupt Great Society project precisely because it interferes with the development and functioning of communities in -8- which sound values are taught and lived. Recently Vice President Quayle gave a speech from which we can all learn. It was controversial -- as it was bound to be, since speeches that say what needs to be said are always controversial. Part of what the Vice President said was this: Right now the failure of our families is hurting America deeply. The anarchy and lack of structure in our inner cities are testament to how quickly civilization falls apart when the family foundation cracks. Children need love and discipline. They need mothers and fathers. A welfare check is not a husband. The state is not a father. It is from parents that children learn how to behave in society; it is from parents above all that children come to understand values and themselves as men and women, mothers and fathers. The Vice President was right to call attention to how popular culture makes matters worse by glamorizing lifestyles that are dysfunctional for the vast majority of persons who attempt them. Murphy Brown is surely to be praised for not aborting her baby; but we must not fall into the trap of believing that abortion and single motherhood exhaust the universe of options. In real life, women's options are often limited; but in the comfort of a television story conference dealing with fictional characters, anything is possible. Murphy could have married (or re-married) the father; or she could have given the child up for adoption, thereby giving him two parents, and giving those parents great joy. Instead, the writers, producers, and network executives -9- chose to glamorize the single-mother "lifestyle" -- and then they hold abortion over our heads when we object. Single parenting may work out fine for the highly-paid few among us, like the Murphy character -- though even there, the lack of a father in the home will be felt. But it's very different for the non-rich majority who watched that show. Under our constitutional system, networks and producers can make and show pretty much any kind of television show they want; but when they send the message that fathers are irrelevant, they deserve the brickbats they get. Mr. Chairman, the Republican platform should reflect the following principles: * The good society comes, not from good government programs, but from the self-generating, non-governmental institutions of family, community, church, voluntary association, and so forth. * Government policy, therefore, should support, rather than substitute for, these institutions. * Government programs that substitute for the family have the effect of destroying it, thereby inviting social dissolution such as we in fact see in our inner cities. -10- * It is time for a total re-conceptualization of what government does in the area of solving social problems. The new paradigm should favor individuals, families, enterprise, private problem-solving, traditional values, and human freedom. Thank you very much. "FAMILY VALUES" -- ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES Gary L. Bauer, President, Family Research Council for CONGRESSIONAL QUARTERLY It is a given of American democracy that every principle, if sufficiently popular, sooner or later becomes a slogan. One group reduces its philosophy to a soundbite, and other groups take that soundbite, ream out its content, and use it as a vehicle for their own philosophy. Such is currently the fate of the term "family values." Everybody and everything wants to be seen as exemplifying them -- including people who do not adhere to family values by any known or traditional definition of that term. The fact that the professional spin doctors have latched onto "family values" is a testimony to the good sense of the American people. They won't buy into something that is not family-friendly. However, it remains to be seen whether they will also have the sense to look behind the label. I think they should, and I would like to suggest a few things to look for. One common scam is when a politician claims the label "pro- family" yet believes that the word "family" should be interpreted so broadly as to become contentless. When such a person says he supports family values, all he means is that it's nice for people to hang out with whomever they want to hang out with. Pro-family Americans generally have something more specific in mind, such as -2- husbands and wives sticking together, and parents taking care of their children, including their moral upbringing. For some of our family-come-lately politicians, however, these things smack too much of sexism and repression. A legal theorist married to a very prominent "family values" politician once wrote an article describing marriage and the family as tools of oppression and equating them with slavery and the Indian reservations. This theorist's views could receive extensive circulation if she achieves her aim of occupying the East Wing of the White House. It is difficult to see how one can simultaneously favor both 'family values" and the systematic replacement of parents by the state. Yet we have "pro-family" politicians who favor distribution of condoms in schools without parental approval; who oppose giving parents the means to exercise broad choice regarding where to send their children to school; who favor maintaining welfare policies that have decimated the family in the inner cities; and who favor policies that will further erode the amount of time parents have available to spend with their children. In fact, it's chilling how much of what passes for "pro- family" policy today consists either of regulating the family, or subsidizing its destruction. As Immanuel Kant once said after receiving a favorable medical examination: "I'm dying of improvements." Policy-makers and the general public should be alert. Replacing the family with the state has been on the agenda of -3- utopians for over a century. There is no reason to think political utopianism is dead merely because communism is dying; nor is there any reason to doubt that whatever they do to the family -- seducing spouses away through no-fault divorce laws, yanking welfare benefits as a penalty for getting married and holding a job, taking children into custody because the parents' techniques differ from those in some approved handbook -- they will have a plausible- sounding "pro-family" reason for doing it. My organization, the Family Research Council, has just released a book of diagnoses and recommendations for family policy, called Free to be Family. We are mindful of our obligation to put flesh on the bones of words like "pro-family" and "family values," and this book does just that, as far as public policy is concerned. But the true inner sanctum of "family values" is not a public policy at all. It's lunch boxes lovingly packed; favorite bedtime stories re-read; a heartfelt grace said at a family meal; and all the memories, hopes, joys and even sorrows that go with these things. A whole world is there that government cannot create, but which is central to life for millions of Americans. I will draw this line in the sand: Politicians who can show, convincingly, that they know and cherish this ideal deserve to be called defenders of "family values." To all others, the American people should say: "Threaten our jobs as parents, and lose yours. If 30 STAFF: FYI FROM CAD "THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY AND THE POLITICS OF ABORTION" GOVERNOR ROBERT P. CASEY COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA NOTRE DAME LAW SCHOOL APRIL 2, 1992 Thank you for the introduction. And the warm welcome. At least for today, I feel like I am back in law school myself. I studied law at George Washington University. Ellen and I were newlyweds. We had a one bedroom apartment on Skyland Place in southeast Washington. To help make ends meet, I got a job selling encyclopedias. On commission. Door to door. In Beltsville, Maryland. I lasted one week. I never sold a book. Not one. It was the hardest job I never had. They'd slam the door in your face. They'd curse at you. It was almost as bad as political fund-raising. That's when I learned a lesson that has served me well all my life. You can stand in the doorway with a sample case full of great products, but you'll never get the chance to sell them unless you get through the front door and into the living room. That is a lesson the national Democratic Party needs to learn in 1992. Because in too many homes in this country, national Democrats have not been welcome because they fail the basic threshold test when voters ask them about values. They never get the chance to open their sample case full of "issues" like economic growth and jobs. Tax fairness. Health care. Protection of the environment. -1- This, then, is what I want to talk about today: What I believe the Democratic Party must do if it is to seize the best chance it has had in years to recapture the White House. In my home state of Pennsylvania two watershed events have already helped define the political dynamic of this presidential election year. The first event was underdog Harris Wofford's election last November to the United States Senate. That one election changed the political life of George Bush -- perhaps permanently. By burying Bush's own Attorney General Dick Thornburgh in a landslide. One of the biggest upsets in modern American political history. That is why the first presidential primary this year wasn't in New Hampshire. It was in Pennsylvania last November. And national politics hasn't been the same ever since. The second watershed event is unfolding right now. It involves the high voltage "A" word. Abortion. The hottest button in American politics today. You may have heard of the case that is before the Supreme Court called Planned Parenthood versus Casey. Let me introduce myself. I'm Casey. In less than three weeks, I will be in Washington when the Supreme Court hears arguments on the extent to which states like Pennsylvania can regulate abortion. Remember the date: Wednesday, April 22. Because it is a case that has unleashed thunder on the right and lightning on the left. It is a case that goes straight to the heart and soul of our basic value system. What kind of a people, what kind of a society we want to be. Let me tell you about Planned Parenthood versus Casey and where it comes from. -2- It comes from Pennsylvania and its people. Take a picture of Pennsylvania and you have taken a snapshot of America. On either end of our state we have two great urban centers, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, with all the ferment of big city politics and big city problems. And in between are millions of people who are right at home in heartland America. Who live in dozens of smaller cities and hundreds of towns -- surrounded by the largest rural population you will find anywhere in the country. And from one end of Pennsylvania to the other, families still raise their kids with the same old-fashioned values that have been handed down from one generation to the next. Values that say, simply, that it's still okay to be a Boy Scout or a Girl Scout. It's okay to sa: the Pledge of Allegiance at school. To like the Reader's Digest. Where it's still okay to take your family to church, just like your mom and dad took you. Where it's okay to expect your kids to do the same thing with their kids when they grow up. And when they do grow up, just like their parents, they take their politics seriously. In other words -- Pennsylvania is heartland America. And just like all over this country, when it comes down to electing a president, values and character are what make all the difference in the world. Because presidential elections are won not only on programs or policies. Michael Dukakis had some good programs. So did Walter Mondale. But good programs are only a part of what it takes to reach the heart and soul of America when it is time to pick a president. Heart and soul -- That's what presidential elections are all about. That's when people are moved more by the candidate's values than the candidate's programs. -3- And for the past 25 years, too many Democrats in this country have had a bad feeling in their hearts and in their souls about the national Democratic Party. Because the Democratic Party broke its historic compact with mainstream America when it volunteered itself as the party of abortion on demand. When the Democrats convene in New York this July, it will be 20 years since George McGovern "opened up the party's doors." In the two decades since then, the party's position on abortion went from open to closed. From dialogue to dictate. And millions of Democrats headed for those open doors and walked right out. And they never came back. Despite one national defeat after another, the party's national hierarchy has been so tightly focused on their own agenda that the leadership has forgotten where the Democratic party came from. And where it should be going. Every four years they sacrifice the obvious long-term political prize -- the presidency -- for the short-term political and financial approval of a cluster of special interests. Because it is the special interests who control the party's purse strings. In the meantime they have turned the party away from the traditional values of millions of Democrats. I am talking about the so-called Reagan Democrats that both parties are sayi J are essential to victory in 1992. The same voters who were the backbone of the great coalition that voted Democratic as an article of faith for nearly two generations. That produced sure winners instead of sure losers. And this year the White House may once again be within reach. Because the people of this country have come to realize that they have been taken to the cleaners by the failed policies of the Reagan and Bush administrations. -4- But I am worried that the Democrats may once again be on their way to beating themselves. Because on the fundamental issue of abortion, the national Democratic Party doesn't speak for me. Nor does it speak for millions of pro-life Democrats just like me. Nor the millions more who are ambivalent -- but who know they are against abortion on demand. Democrats that the party must have if they are to win in November. Our national Democratic party has built a wall between itself and the values that define mainstream America -- which is most of us. I strongly believe that more than any other issue, it is abortion that defines values in American politics today. That is one reason why Planned Parenthood versus Casey commands so much national attention. And controversy. It is a case the pro-abortion forces have seized upon as a vehicle to generate a decision by the high court before the November election. In a strange turnabout, they want to provoke -- some might even say goad -- the court into overruling Roe V. Wade; producing a result that the abortion lobby and their allies in the media predict will severely embarrass the Republicans nationally. Here is their reasoning: The Republican Party is strongly pro-life. And the abortion lobby has conveniently convinced itself that America is strongly pro-abortion. Therefore, they argue, if the court overrules Roe, the decision will hang like a heavy stone around the Republicans' neck in the fall. I disagree. If being pro-life is such a political negative, then will somebody please explain to me how Ronald Reagan and George Bush got elected in the first place? And if being pro-abortion is the political asset they say it is, then why have the Democrats lost every presidential election since 1968, except the post-Watergate election of Jimmy Carter? -5- I believe the pro-abortion forces seriously misread the mood of the American people. And I also believe they are deluding themselves if they really believe the tide of public opinion is moving in their direction. The national Democratic Party either failed to understand -- or chose to ignore -- the seismic social and political shock waves generated by the Roe decision in 1973. A decision in which Justice Blackmun, by the stroke of a pen, transformed abortion, then a crime in most states, into a fundamental constitutional right. And this is crucial: Roe was never accepted by tens of millions of Americans who felt the court was arbitrarily overriding their own deeply held values. Instead they banded together in what has been called the one truly authentic social movement of the 1970s. They saw Roe V. Wade at the very least as a metaphor for a host of anti-family policies. And at worst, they saw Roe as a direct frontal attack on traditional family relationships. Between husband and wife. Parent and child. An attack that short-circuited a consensus that had already formed among most of the states. A consensus that said abortion was a crime. Roe was nothing less than a revolution pronounced from on high. And the massive response against it by voters all over the country has had a profound effect on every national election since then. Consider this: On Election Day 1988, ABC News polled 100,000 voters as they left voting places in every one of the 50 states. They wanted to know what really went on in voters' minds once they were inside that voting booth. Once they were alone with just their conscience and their values. -6- And fully one-third of the voters volunteered -- without even being asked specifically -- that the number one issue when they were making up their mind was abortion. One-third of the voters. Some were for abortion. Some were against it. And of those who cited abortion as the most important issue, a strong majority -- 57 percent to be exact -- pulled the lever for George Bush. Because he was pro-life. Because of what they perceived to be his values. They gave Dukakis high marks on the issues: the environment, health care. And these voters clearly preferred Dukakis to Bush when it came to caring about people. But they chose Bush over Dukakis in spite of these so-called issues. Why? Because of values. That is why a strong case can be made that the winning margin of voters in 1988 rejected Michael Dukakis and the Democratic Party because of value issues -- with abortion the preeminent factor. Dukakis lost 11 states by less than 4.6 percent. States like California, Maryland and Connecticut. Plus states with significant pro-life voting records like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, and Missouri. If Dukakis had not given away the high ground on the value issues -- especially abortion -- a strong argument can be made that he could have beaten Bush in those same 11 states. Picking up enough votes in the Electoral College so that today he would be president -- instead of a private citizen. The news media routinely pronounces that polls show most Americans favor abortion. Just like that. Case closed. It's just not SO. What the polls really show is that most Americans are enormously uncomfortable about abortion. In fact, abortion is so personal, so private an issue that most Americans won't discuss it publicly at all. -7- But when asked by pollsters, they do respond. Their answers depend on how the questions are phrased. And who is doing the asking. But certain conclusions emerge conclusively from the polling data. For example, as many as 86 percent of all Americans favor restrictions on abortion, according to a Gallup Poll of a few weeks ago. Restrictions that are similar to those I signed into law in Pennsylvania. Restrictions that say: * A woman should know enough about abortion to give informed consent to the procedúre itself. * After a woman requests an abortion, there should be a 24- hour waiting period before she actually undergoes the procedure. * Under most circumstances, a minor considering an abortion must obtain the consent of at least one parent. * A wife should notify her husband, with exceptions, of course, to protect her safety. These are limitations that I believe are within the Roe doctrine, as modified by Webster. They are acceptable to a majority of the people of Pennsylvania. In fact, they are acceptable to most Americans. And we should find out this summer if they are acceptable to the Supreme Court. But we already know that they are not acceptable to the national Democratic Party. We know that because the national party has embraced the most extreme position -- abortion on demand. In fact, the party won't even talk about it. They have shut off all discussion of the issue. The special interests controlling the party are absolutely intolerant of any view on abortion other than their own most extreme view. -8- Just .ask the 80 Democratic members of the House of Representatives who have voted against their party's pro-abortion position. That's one-third of the Democrat's House majority, from states all over the country, who refuse to knuckle under to the party line. They have paid a price as a result. Congressional Quarterly recently said of these pro-life representatives that "people who stick their heads up on the Democratic side get slammed." Congressional Quarterly quoted one Congressman this way, "Democrats have made it uncomfortable for other Democrats to be pro-life." Three years ago there still seemed to be at least some room for diversity and dialogue, even dissent. And nearly 50 House Democrats wrote Party Chairman Ron Brown urging that the abortion plank be removed from the party's platform. The signers of the letter were liberal and conservative, male and female, first-termers and committee chairs. They came from every region, from the cities and from the farms. Let me read to you some of what they said, because it speaks directly to what is wrong with the party today. Here is what they wrote: "We, along with millions of our fellow Democrats, believe that the principle and practice of abortion on demand is wrong (and) the platform plank is bad public policy. " as good Democrats (we) simply cannot accept that plank as part of our Democratic heritage and philosophy. " it is also poor politics. "A good case can be made that the last three presidential elections have turned, at least in large part, on the loss of traditional Democrats who have broken with the party over so- called social issues, particularly abortion. -9- " The Democratic Party is seen more and more as the party of abortion -- a sure recipe for losing irretrievably a significant segment of our traditional base of support." And how did Chairman Brown respond? Sorry, he said. "I cannot revise nor alter the platform." And then, with a straight face, he went on to tell the House Democrats -- and here I quote again, "We have no litmus tests." No litmus test? Well, they sure do now. Certainly for the highest office in the land. The special interests who today control the national party impose -- no, they insist on -- a litmus test on abortion as a condition of nomination to national office. Let me tell you why the national litmus test is dumb politics. I am a pro-life Democrat. I beat a pro-abortion Republican when I was elected Governor in 1986. Then, in 1990, I was reelected over another pro-abortion Republican by over one million votes. The largest winning gubernatorial margin in Pennsylvania history. Against an opponent who spent $2 million to beat me. At a time when the post-Webster spin from the abortion lobby and the national media held that pro-life candidates were doomed. And I'll tell you something else: Pennsylvania is not the only battleground where pro-life candidates have succeeded. Just look at what happened in other key contests in 1990. In Kansas, pro-abortion advocates offered insurgent Democrat Joan Finney thousands of dollars to abandon her pro-life principles when she ran for Governor. Just like that old line, "I'd rather fight than switch," Joan Finney chose to fight. She walked right out of a meeting packed with people with their checkbooks already out. And on her own, went on to beat the pro-abortion incumbent Republican Governor Mike Hayden. -10- In Ohio, Democratic Attorney General Anthony Celebrezze for 25 years was a champion of the rights of unborn children. Until he ran for Governor, that is. That is when he flip-flopped. And endorsed a pro-abortion platform. And he lost the election to the pro-life candidate, George Voinovich. The same thing happened to another Democratic state attorney general, Neil Hartigan of Illinois. Four months before the gubernatorial election, he announced he was pro-abortion, despite a long pro-life record. And he lost his election to Jim Edgar, a pro-life Republican. In Michigan, the incumbent Democratic Governor Jim Blanchard vetoed dozens of abortion restrictions. And the voters replaced him with a pro-life candidate, John Engler. There were other important pro-life victories, too: * Hatfield of Oregon. Returned to the Senate. * Andrus of Idaho. Reelected Governor. * House Whip David Bonior. The highest-ranking pro-life Democrat in the House. Reelected from Michigan's 12th Congressional district. For the winners, Republican or Democratic, there was a common factor in each case. * All were pro-life. * All were under attack. * All stuck to their guns. * And all won their elections. Then there was 1989. When two of the biggest elections also involved pro-life candidates who waffled. Who flinched when they felt the heat. Do you remember Republican Jim Courter of New Jersey? Or Republican Marshall Coleman of Virginia? -11- Each was pro-life. Each was running for governor in a major state. Each panicked in the weeks and months after the Supreme Court's Webster decision in 1989. Each felt the pressure and pulled back from their pro-life positions. And each became an asterisk in the 1989 political almanac. But even in the face of all this evidence. despite election after election the national Democratic Party still doesn't get it. One thing is crystal clear, though. If the Democrats hope to elect a president in 1992, they simply can't afford to lose states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Illinois. Like they did in 1988. Nor can they afford to ignore the effect on voters all over this country of the party's radical position -- abortion on demand. But do they recognize the force of the pro-life issue? Not by a long shot. In fact, the crowd inside the Washington Beltway and the Democrats' national fund-raisers go so far as to actually punish those who disagree with them in the one way that hurts the most: they shut off the money. As a result, any Democrat who is pro-life can't even get out of the gate. Because they are locked out of the fund-raising centers of New York and Washington, Miami and Los Angeles. Just turn on your TV to see how it works. A few months ago we all saw the big banquet in Washington that was sponsored by the National Abortion Rights Action League. And right in the thick of it, tripping over each other, were all of the Democratic presidential hopefuls. Making the obligatory pilgrimage that the party's nomination process demands. And you can bet that Mr. and Mrs. America watching at home knew full well that not one of them had been across town at the big pro-life rally on the mall that same day. It is this TV image that tells the whole story of what is wrong with the national Democratic Party on the abortion issue. -12- It is a sad commentary that this system requires so many of the party's biggest names to switch from pro-life to what they call "pro-choice." Just to position themselves as national candidates. Just so they can pass the party's presidential litmus test. It seems more than mere coincidence that so many of the party's top names appear to have been forced in this direction in recent years. Like Joe Biden. Dick Gephardt. Sam Nunn. Bob Kerry. Jesse Jackson. And every four years, those same special interests lead the misguided Democratic Party right off the same cliff. And the Republicans are right there to nudge them along every step of the way. The tragedy of presidential campaigns over the past 20 years has been that the Republicans do such an effective job with their calculated appeals to Democrats who feel shut out. Twenty years ago they branded the Democrats as the party of "Acid, Amnesty and Abortion." Values. That's what they were talking about then. That's what they are still talking about today. The kind of values that can make or break a presidential campaign. Three years ago, Speaker of the House Tom Foley assured reporters that there was no formal Democratic leadership position on abortion. My, how times have changed. Just listen to what he gratuitously declared in his response to the President's State of the Union address. Even though the President made no mention of abortion, for some reason Foley could not resist issuing this prediction to the national television audience: "If the Supreme Court removes the guarantees of choice from the Constitution of the United States, this Congress will write it into the laws of the United States." And with those 28 words, the Speaker of the House deeply offended large numbers of pro-life Democrats everywhere. -13- Beginning with one-third of his own members of the House. Not to mention all those pro-life Democrats like me who see the party driving itself further and further from the people. And he should have checked first with his own majority leader in the Senate, George Mitchell. Who -- while pro-choice -- opposes the very same "Freedom of Choice Act" that Speaker Foley says he will make into the law of the land. Even as Foley spoke, all across America you could hear minds clicking off right along with their TVs. So that brings us to the big question: How do we get them to turn back on again? By rededicating ourselves to the protection of the powerless in our society. This is my message to my party in 1992: Just as we fought so hard and so well for the rights of the workers of America. For the dignity and human rights of minorities. For women and children and families. For the poor. The disabled. The dispossessed. Just as we fought for all of these, the time has come as well to fight to protect the most vulnerable, the most defenseless, the most powerless members of our human family. The Democrats of 1992 are heirs to an historic legacy that wraps a protective embrace around those who have no means to protect themselves. The time has come for the Democratic Party to protect what should be a natural constituency -- our unborn children. Just feel the passion and the power of these words: "What happens to the mind of a person, and the moral fabric of a nation, that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience? "What kind of a person, what kind of a society, will we have 20 years hence if life can be taken so casually?" Jesse Helms didn't say that. Jesse Jackson did. -14- In 1977. Four years after Roe V. Wade. We Democrats must remind ourselves in 1992 that the founder of our party is Thomas Jefferson. And more than 200 years ago, in Philadelphia, Jefferson wrote: "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness " I call on Democrats everywhere to become the party of life. And let this be clear: That in fighting for life, we have a corresponding obligation to do all we can to make life worth living. For both mother and child. To offer help and understanding for women who must endure difficult pregnancies. Good prenatal and neonatal care. Nutrition and health care. Family and medical leave. Child care. And a renewed commitment to adoption as a viable -- and affordable -- choice. We must fight for life with the same passion that Democrats throughout history have fought for liberty. Now, more than ever, the Democratic platform should reflect the shared values of Democrats everywhere. Because this is more than an issue of rights. It is an issue of right and wrong. And millions of Democrats believe their party's dead wrong on abortion. And the party will stay wrong until they open the party. and open the platform process to dialogue and debate. Until they stop ignoring the millions of Democrats just like me who want to protect and preserve the lives of unborn children. I believe it is time for the party to deliver a strong message to the American people that millions of Democrats believe in protecting unborn human life. And to deliver that message in the party platform. This is what the party must debate. And that debate must begin now. -15- Today I encourage like-minded Democrats everywhere to respond to this call to action. Especially those in positions of leadership. Senators and members of the House of Representatives. Governors. State Legislators. Delegates to the convention in July. Members of the platform committee. Rank and file voters all over this country. The Democratic Party may indeed offer the best economic message. And a health care program that'll work for everyone. Along with tax fairness. And social justice. And a strong commitment to protecting our environment. But just like that encyclopedia salesman, my party will never succeed unless we can reach into the living rooms of America to make our presentation. There is still time. The American people are waiting. They are watching. They are ready to open the door. I believe that if the National Democratic Party and its candidates offer a strong value-oriented message, the people will welcome them back into their homes and into their hearts. And into the White House once again. Thank you. -16- Washington Infants in the Womb Post 7-15-92 I thought for sure I was missing man beings. All infants are members something. I had read the Supreme of the human community and are Court's latest decision on abortion entitled to its care and protection. and the various editorials about it. That is why we spend SO much time And I heard what they all had to say and money on prenatal care. It is why about the rights of women and the we operate in utero on even second- rights of states. But neither the trimester unborn infants to correct courts nor the editorial writers said some birth defects. We even provide anything about the rights of the infant intensive care for newborns who are in the womb. I though for sure I had no larger or more mature than some missed it. second- and third-trimester infants Then the lawyers told me that this whom we abort. Down deep we all is because unborn children, according know infants in the womb are, at the to the Supreme Court, are not consid- least, living beings and members of ered "persons" under our Constitution the species Homo sapiens. That is and, therefore, don't have any rights. more than enough to entitle them to This is astounding. protection of the human community. This country has spent its energies The best solution to the abortion and lived its history in defending the question is to eliminate the need for defenseless. We have opened our abortion. Until this goal can be gates to persecuted immigrants. We achieved we must support legislation have penned legislation to care for that discourages abortion, especially the handicapped and the elderly. late-term abortions. The Supreme Many of us work hard for the home- Court has affirmed in Gov. Casey V. less. In short, we as a country clearly Planned Parenthood the right of the recognize that the defenseless are not excluded from the human community state to impose some restrictions on abortions. simply because they are defenseless. Now it becomes our responsibility If we are to keep this great tradi- tion, we cannot exclude infants from to protect the unborn infant by work- the human community just because ing for the passage in each state of they are defenseless-the lawyers legislation that will reduce the num- ber of second- and third-trimester say "not viable"-inside the womb. The lawyers will no doubt object that abortions performed each year. infants in the womb are technically We cannot be satisfied as Ameri- not "persons." Let the lawyers argue cans or as human beings with laws all they want. Down deep we all know that exclude unborn infants from the better. human community and deny them any Many compassionate people believe rights. We must also work to guaran- even animals have some rights simply tee all mothers their full dignity and because they are alive. Abortions— provide them with opportunities and the more than 150,000 second- and resources to help them carry their third-trimester abortions performed infants to term and to assist them annually-are frequently far more with the care of their children when gruesome and tortuous than even the born. worst treatment of animals. This is EUNICE KENNEDY SHRIVER beneath us as Americans and as hu- Washington Sile: CDF Family Research Council ® Gary L. Bauer, President FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: CONTACT: Kristi Stone July 8, 1992 (202) 393-2100 CHILDREN'S DEFENSE FUND BIASES, DISTORTS FACTS, SAYS GARY BAUER WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Gary Bauer, president of the Family Research Council, blasted the Children's Defense Fund on Wednesday for misrepresenting the causes of children's poverty and for distorting the facts on such a serious issue. "The liberal Children's Defense Fund political agenda seems clear -- bashing past administrations rather than coming up with real answers for the family and children," said Bauer, former domestic policy adviser. Bauer notes that CDF President Marian Wright Edelman blames "government budget cuts" for the increases in child poverty rather than deal with the economic and social devastation caused by behaviors that have fueled a dramatic increase in single-parent households. "The Children's Defense Fund ignores the evidence about the negative effects of life in a single-parent household in favor of their usual scapegoats -- allegedly stingy government officials and inadequate funding," Bauer said. The facts tell a different story, he noted. According to a report released by the Washington-based Cato Institute in early June, real entitlement spending has INCREASED dramatically since 1989. Aid to Families with Dependent Children has increased 17 percent; Food Stamp spending has increased 46 percent; Head Start has increased 58 percent; and Medicaid has increased 85 percent. Bauer said that the increase in children's poverty rate is the result of the breakdown of the family and an increase in single- parent households. CDF's interpretation of the data is deceptive in three key ways, Bauer said. 1. CDF downplays the role of single parenthood in causing poverty among children. In 1990, 53% of children living with mother only lived in poverty. Only 10% of children living with both parents lived in Family Research Council A division of Focus on the Family 700 Thirteenth Street, NW, Suite 500 Washington, DC 20005 (202) 393-2100 FAX (202) 393-2134 poverty. This means that children living with both of their parents are FIVE TIMES less likely to live in poverty than children living with only their mothers. 2. CDF ignores unwed pregnancy statistics in the state by state data, making it impossible to see the strong correlation between high unwed pregnancy rates in a state and increased child poverty rates. 3. CDF distorts the poverty picture by claiming that the poverty rate of children in two-parent homes and single- parent homes grew at the same rate without looking at the actual numbers of children affected. Between '79 and '89, the time period they cite, the poverty RATE of children in two-parent homes increased from 8.3 percent to 9.9 percent; for children in female- headed households, that increase was from 48.6 percent to 51.1 percent. In 1989 the NUMBER of children in two-parent homes living in poverty was 700,000 greater than in 1979; by comparison the increase for children in female-headed households living in poverty was 1,173,000. "This is manipulative use of the data,' Bauer stated. "Although the rate of increase may be roughly similar, they can in no way be called equivalent when the numbers of children affected are so vastly greater among children in single-parent homes. "The economy does impact families," Bauer said. "However, children in two-parent homes who enter poverty as a result of recessionary times are usually brought out of poverty by improved economic conditions. It is vital to note that this is not true for most children in mother-only homes: for these children, poverty is persistent. "But real answers are available," Bauer said, noting the policy recommendations contained in Free to Be Family, the report released Tuesday by the Family Research Council. Quoting the report, "The poverty rate for children in single- parent homes, even at its lowest, has never been as low as the rate for children in two-parent homes, even at its highest,' Bauer said. "Family disintegration, and social policies that foster it, are the primary cause of child poverty -- not budget cuts that have never happened. Unlike CDF's illusory budget cuts, the crisis of family break-up is all too real." - 30 - Sile: CDF Family Research Council ® Gary L. Bauer, President FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: CONTACT: Kristi Stone July 8, 1992 (202) 393-2100 CHILDREN'S DEFENSE FUND BIASES, DISTORTS FACTS, SAYS GARY BAUER WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Gary Bauer, president of the Family Research Council, blasted the Children's Defense Fund on Wednesday for misrepresenting the causes of children's poverty and for distorting the facts on such a serious issue. "The liberal Children's Defense Fund political agenda seems clear -- bashing past administrations rather than coming up with real answers for the family and children," said Bauer, former domestic policy adviser. Bauer notes that CDF President Marian Wright Edelman blames "government budget cuts" for the increases in child poverty rather than deal with the economic and social devastation caused by households. behaviors that have fueled a dramatic increase in single-parent George Bush Library Photocopy "The Children's Defense Fund ignores the evidence about the negative effects of life in a single-parent household in favor of their usual scapegoats -- allegedly stingy government officials and inadequate funding," Bauer said. The facts tell a different story, he noted. According to a report released by the Washington-based Cato Institute in early June, real entitlement spending has INCREASED dramatically since 1989. Aid to Families with Dependent Children has increased 17 percent; Food Stamp spending has increased 46 percent; Head Start has increased 58 percent; and Medicaid has increased 85 percent. Bauer said that the increase in children's poverty rate is the result of the breakdown of the family and an increase in single- parent households. CDF's interpretation of the data is deceptive in three key ways, Bauer said. 1. CDF downplays the role of single parenthood in causing poverty among children. In 1990, 53% of children living with mother only lived in poverty. Only 10% of children living with both parents lived in Family Research Council A division of Focus on the Family 700 Thirteenth Street, NW, Suite 500 Washington, DC 20005 (202) 393-2100 FAX (202) 393-2134 July 15, 1992 TO: STEVEN PROVOST DAN McGROARTY SPEECHWRITERS RESEARCHERS FROM: JOE DUGGAN ID SUBJECT: FAMILY ISSUES AND THEMES The attached may provide some material for the speeches during "family week." This document was grist for the GOP platform, prepared by some family policy specialists at the request of the platform committee executive director. The platform editor, Bill Gribbin, told me today that we are welcome to use anything from the attached document for the President's speeches. 12 NH St. Leg . Feb (18) S. Repubs F 18 Tex GOP June Gretna 70053 FAMILY The foundation for renewing American society is the family. We must strengthen that foundation. When a society is based on healthy families, parents are the first teachers of the Three Rs; they give the first indispensable lessons in love and virtue and responsibility. Family homes and family businesses teach millions of Americans the fundamentals of economics and management. Bringing children into the world entails responsibility to provide not only material necessities, but moral education. Character formation within families confirms habits of hard work, honesty, financial prudence, tolerance, and cooperation. Personal responsibility is the basis for our rule of law, for our tradition of freedom. Shelby Steele, in The Content of Our Character, writes, "Personal responsibility is the brick and mortar of power. The responsible person knows that the quality of his life is something that he will have to make inside the limits of his fate The quality of his life will pretty much reflect his efforts." For most of our country's history, government was based on recognition of this principle. Great American leaders have known government's limits and respected the rights of individuals and families. When families fail, society suffers. If we were to increase taxes and spending a hundredfold for public schools, for government health and "human services" programs, for crime prevention and law enforcement -- we could not fill the void that would come about from a general collapse of the family institution. Even the most 2 essential and efficient government programs cannot rebuild a shattered moral order. This is not simply a hypothetical concern. Our families are in trouble. [illustrative data] A breakdown in personal responsibility is among the causes of our families' crisis. The culture of New Age Liberalism -- sneering at traditional values and condoning drug use and casual sex among teenagers as well as adults -- has fanned the flames of the crisis. And in no small measure, the crisis has been exacerbated by government that has abandoned its sense of limits. Social engineers and the liberal politicians who give them power have invaded the sanctity of our families. They've preempted our families' natural rights, responsibilities and functions. Liberal legislators, liberal bureaucrats, and Jimmy Carter's most enduring legacy -- hundreds of liberal judges on the federal bench -- have increasingly interposed government and the legal system between parents and children. This iron triangle of liberals in government continues to usurp the God-given authority of parents and to weaken the natural relationship between parents and children. From the Great Society hubris of Lyndon Johnson to the New Age themes of Bill Clinton, liberal Democrats have clung to the vain notion that they could divorce the problem of poverty from moral assumptions and conditions. Republicans stand with the American majority who understand that the moral and material dimensions of poverty are inseparable. After years of big-government liberals' 3 attempts to devise social policies that are scrupulously neutral and "value free," Americans now see more clearly than ever that the liberals' grand design has had grave material and social consequences. Forty years of Congressional control by tax-and-spend Democrats and their liberal staff bureaucracy has promoted a culture of dependency and irresponsibility among those who most urgently need the discipline and rewards of hard work. Study, patience, and diligence are stigmatized. Brave young people trying to rise from the slums must endure threats and taunts from the alternative culture. Reversing these tragic -- and, in the truest sense of the word, unamerican -- trends is the essential question of our future. We have seen that once taboos are broken by a community and modification of its ethical code is tolerated, it is often not easy to find a stopping place. We are at that stopping place, and we know what we must do to restore ourselves and our communities. We cannot raise children to be good without forcefully condemning what is bad. Whoever imagines an America without clear moral values envisions an America that could never be. Tocquevelle said it more than a century ago: America is great because she is good; and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great. We would become a soulless and divided nation. Our common vision of the good and just life is what keeps the "united" in "United States." 4 A sense of moral decency runs deep in the American people. We know that the simple things, the simple gifts, and the simple truths that Americans have always sought to live by are more relevant than ever in our complex times. We are for compassion and tolerance. We are, after all, commanded to love our neighbor. But we do not believe that being compassionate and tolerant means abandoning our standards of right or wrong, good or bad. Government's most urgent mission today is to return to its proper limits. Renewing society cannot be primarily the work of government. It is our work, the work of our communities, the work of our families, the work of each person, responding each day to the hard questions of life. Limited, reformed, restructured government will put families first, put people above paperwork, put results above process. Government has to accomplish its aims with more efficiency and accountability: in other words, do things right and do the right things. Our families will benefit ultimately when government cuts the deficit at the top, move functions back to states and localities, and restores the leading social and economic role of private property and private enterprise. Wherever possible, we encourage state and local reforms that require and reward responsibility, promote family values and reduce dependence. We support choice and innovation in education and health services. Above all, we recognize that government should aim not to control Americans, but to help them exercise responsibility for their own lives. 5 Government must act to help families, not to replace them. As Republicans, we believe the family is the first place to look in making decisions, educating children, ensuring children have adequate housing, food, and clothing. Republicans believe good citizenship begins in keeping faith with our families. Families must come first, because families are the foundation on which all else is built. Life and the Nurture of Families: We Owe It to Our Children The value of children is the value of life itself. We believe that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We reaffirm our support for a human life amendment to the Constitution, and we endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to unborn children. We oppose the use of public revenues for abortion and will eliminate funding for organizations which advocate or support abortion. We commend the efforts of those individuals and religious and private organizations that are providing positive alternatives to abortion by meeting the physical, emotional, and financial needs of pregnant women and offering adoption services where needed. [Previous is identical to the Pro-life language from '88 platform] We applaud President Bush's fine record of judicial appointments, and we reaffirm our support for the appointment of judges at all levels of the judiciary who respect traditional family values and the sanctity of innocent human life. 6 [Add consistent language on euthanasia] We believe every child has a right to a family. Whether that family is created biologically, by adoption, or through foster care, we believe that every child deserves a home, a home that is free from abuse and where they will be nurtured with love and care. Many children in the United States of America do not live this way. We will reform our nation's child welfare laws so that no child goes unwanted, uncared for, or unloved. We need to turn to an affirmative adoption policy -- making things easier in terms of taxes and legal costs and procedures for those generous Americans who want to adopt. The status quo tilts far too much to encouraging unwed teenage mothers not to opt for adoption, but to attempt to parent their own children when they are poorly prepared to do SO. When the predictable and preventable tragedies occur, children end up as wards of the state, bouncing from foster home to foster home. It is no surprise that when children are liberated at age 18 from such an erratic and inconsistent foster care life, they suffer a frighteningly high probability of becoming mired in crime or poverty or both. An affirmative adoption policy would encourage good foster parents to become permanent adoptive parents. An affirmative adoption policy would encourage a revival of maternity homes and other such institutions that have alsways been a boon to society but whose viability has been threatened by urban political machines and their public-welfare bureaucracies. We will undertake a comprehensive reform of the foster care 7 system -- a disgrace and the virtual exclusive responsibility of big city mayors and bureaucrats. Children who must remain in foster care should have the right to live in a permanent, nurturing, secure environment. Tragically this is not the case. Bureaucrats bounce foster care children from home to home; the goal of a good foster care system must be permanency. Should children remain in foster care, the system must afford them opportunity to develop the skills, self-respect and motivation to become outstanding members of society. Families headed by single parents experience particular difficulties. Some single parents bravely struggle and succeed in attending to the moral education of their children; while some married couples shamefully neglect their moral duties toward their offspring. Child care is an important issue for single and two parent families. Parents want to ensure that their values are passed on to their children, and their choices in child care, whether in or out of the home, are some of the most important decisions parents make. President Bush established an important precedent, for single and two parent families, in his 1990 child care bill. He prevailed in his fight for a voucher system, respecting parents' rights, including the right to choose religious institutions for child care. We will continue to fight to protect parents' rightful authority in their families and the sanctity of the relationship between parents and children: [details of some of clear and present dangers posed by Hillary Clinton/Marian Wright Edelman/Children's Defense Fund/Legal Services network/Henry Waxman et al.] Single parents face yet another challenge -- how to prevent their child from being raised in poverty. Divorce is the single highest correlative to poverty [check fact]. Yet, even though many marriages -- too many -- don't last, both parents still have responsibilities. Sadly, too often we see shared responsibilities neglected, or even abandoned, most often by fathers. Every child is brought into this world by two individuals -- and the same two individuals have the responsibility to raise their child. Republican leadership in recent years has brought about landmark national legislation to strengthen enforcement of child support, including authority to garnish wages of fathers who fail to pay child support. But much of the responsibility for effective enforcement still remains in the hands of state and local authorities. Disgracefully, many states and localities now fail to insist on establishing the paternity of illegitimate children through they have the means to do SO. Society can't enforce the responsibilities of fathers if we don't know who they are. Therefore we call upon all state and local authorities to demand that the mother of an illegitimate child cooperate in every way with efforts to establish the father's identity -- or face the loss of welfare benefits. Republican leadership under President Reagan and President Bush has turned this nation around on the all-important demand side of the drug crisis. The simple but profound moral exhortation - - "just say no to drugs" is showing dramatic results among our 9 teenagers. Republicans now dedicate themselves to making a similar, all-out effort to encourage teenagers to say no to sex outside of marriage. Our opponents demean young Americans by asserting they cannot behave responsibly. Our opponents promote handing out condoms to girls and boys in high school and junior high. Republicans respect the dignity of our young people. We want to encourage them to make mature, responsible decisions in accord with our age-old moral heritage. Our domestic agenda to promote life, and to promote children, is: [88 prolife platform language] Adoption reforms so that children can get quick placement into permanent homes; Reforming the foster care to ensure siblings stay together and expedited permanent adoption; [tax credits, flexible work schedules -- items aimed at single parents] strengthening child support enforcement other? Living Safely: Halting Crime and Punishing Criminals No child can learn, or even hope for a better future, when a random gunshot can ricochet through the living room window or the window of his mother's car. This must not stand. Thirteen-year- old Joseph Ford, an honor student and musician, returning home from a church service, was yet another victim of a stray, drug-related bullet. Joseph had a life full of potential and promise. His 10 hopes and dreams for the future have vanished. We owe Joseph our commitment and our charge is clear: we must protect the innocent, punish and guilty and never, ever tolerate lavlessness under any circumstances. The well-being of families is threatened whenever crime invades their homes or neighborhoods. We need to live without fear that we or our loved ones will be harmed. We need to live without fear that our property will be stolen or vandalized. At every level -- federal, state, and local -- we'll intensify the attack on the organized criminals who are fueling the drug abuse crisis and its related violence. Security is the first requisite to a better life. We continue to insist on reforming a legal system that pampers criminals. We insist on the creation of a culture of character where people help others, instead of turning 12-year olds into drug pushers, or stealing at gunpoint, without fear of punishment. We will launch a powerful defense of families against the devastating crimes of sexual violence and child molestation. These crimes are increasing at a terrifying rate, and they exact an inestimable toll on their victims and their victims' families. [reparations, aid for victims] Society also must recognize that increased tolerance for pornography and near-pornography, and a generation of left-wing "sexual liberation," have broken down some of the habitual restraints that had offered some protection to women, children and families. We stand against pornography and we stand up for its 11 victims. [Agenda must include more support for victims and witnesses, a higher priority and stronger effort to prosecute rapists and child molesters, and stronger, surer penalties.] Our domestic agenda to promote living in safety is: Keeping criminals behind bars with strict mandatory sentences and the Comprehensive Violent Crime Control Act, which supports the death penalty for heinous crimes [other?]; building and maintaining enough prisons to separate dangerous criminals from society. Shutting the revolving door. The states must be more aggressive and tougher on crime. No legalization of drugs of abuse [other drug proposals]; Special school and antiloitering rules that keep drug dealers form dominating streets; [drunk driving as a crime? something regarding spot tests on drivers to detect drunks?] Living Wisely: Education is the Key Education is the only path to a good life. Reading is the first step toward real freedom. Knowledge is the key to understanding. Learning, learning throughout life, is a goal embraced by all Americans. It is the ultimate form of renewal, the ultimate expression of the American way of life. Schools are an important part of our learning process. 12 Government can make predictions about what makes a good school, and government can make suggestions on how to improve schools and convey what new education methods may work. But it is the fundamental right of parents and families to decide what is a good school for their own children. The Republican Party believes that families provide the most important tool in strengthening our education system and we strongly support the right of parents to choose their children's schools. Schools now play a major role, for better or worse, in character formation and moral education. Personal and communal responsibility come together here, for education requires the commitment of all citizens, not merely those who have children in school. We strongly urge that all educational institutions, from kindergartens to universities, recognize and take seriously the grave responsibility to provide moral education. Good character is encouraged when young people learn traditional moral values: tolerance, honesty, thrift, peacemaking, patriotism and democratic fairness. We must not silence our schools in moral matters. Our young people will not be helped in developing good character by schools dominated by the New Age Liberals' philosophy of moral relativism. And we must defend rights of religious expression. Mindful of our religious diversity, we firmly support the right of students to engage in voluntary prayers in schools. President Bush's historic proposal to foster state and local 13 "GI Bills" for Children will give parents greater financial freedom to choose their children's schools -- public, private or religious. The lack of freedom under which parents and children now suffer is egregious. Government-run schools, dominated by the tax-and-spend agendas of the NEA and The AFL-CIO, now have a monopoly on all tax dollars for elementary and secondary education. And schooling is of course compulsory at least to age 16 in most states. Catholic and Lutheran parish schools, Protestant evangelical academies, and Jewish day schools provide "public" education in the true legal sense -- they are certified to provide education laws. But they have to charge tuition to their pupils, while the public schools' main attraction is that its costs are already paid for through ever-increasing school taxes. This system actually abridges the religious freedom of parents whose consciences urge them to send their children to religious schools. Republicans will revolutionize this system. The "GI Bill" voucher plan will encourage more freedom -- and responsibility - - for parents in their children's education. And market competition will require all schools -- public and private -- to emphasize quality in education and to respect parents' rights -- or as market terminology would put it, provide "customer satisfaction." [Need adds here on job training; adult literacy; senior volunteers helping in schools, passing along the wisdom of their years to future generations] 14 our domestic agenda to promote lifelong education and living visely is: restoring parent's rights in education: the GI Bill for Children is a major step strengthen rights of religious expression, including voluntary prayer in schools. Encourage the new experiments in private enterprise in education. Elevating and enforcing standards worthy of a great nation: This will help us achieve the vision of "America 2000" -- meeting our National Education Goals -- including improved literacy and restoring America's world leadership in math and science. encourage seniors to help foster a learning environment by working with children. strengthening the Head Start program for low- income children. Living with Hope: Welfare Reform Living without hope is barely living. Living without hope is not the foundation upon which America was built. The spirit of America, the spirit of renewal, is a spirit of hope. Yet unlike those in our past who have lived the American dream, hope escapes many who live in poverty in America. Much of the time, the welfare system created by the liberals hurts the very people it 15 claims to help. It discourages single mothers from getting married. It leaves too many young women and children without the stability of a two-parent home. It leaves too many people in a cycle of dependency and despair -- robbing them of their dignity. We're determined to change that system -- to overthrow the destructive anti-family policies that decades of liberal legislation have given us. Experience and common sense teaches that freedom and creativity can do the job better than rigid regulation. We believe in removing disincentives to work. Instead, we want to see requirements for able-bodied welfare recipients to work. We will reverse policies that encourage illegitimacy, break up families, or discourage families from forming, such as the housing subsidy for minor girls with children out of wedlock. Imaginative state and local officials will be the designers and agents of major reform -- and we're determined that the federal government should allow them all the flexibility they need to help transform the American welfare system. The President's HOPE initiative -- Home ownership and Opportunity for People Everywhere -- would allow public housing residents to recapture the American dream of home ownership by managing their own communities and ultimately owning their own homes. Our domestic agenda to destroy the cycle of dependency and to endow people with hope is: * flexibility for states to innovate with 16 welfare policies and programs enterprise zones encourage work over welfare home ownership Living Healthy: Promote Health, Prevent Disease, Reform Health Care Common wisdom tells us, "If you have your health, you have everything." Millions of Americans are suffer preventable illness and have inadequate access to appropriate health care because of significant barriers in the delivery and financing of health care. Health care costs too much. To ensure that everyone "has their health, we must make major changes in the way we approach health and health care in this country. In this election presents Americans with a clear choice. Democrats want a costly, coercive system commanded by the liberal congressmen and bureaucrats -- a prescription for disaster. Republicans believe a government controlled system is wrong. We believe in reforming the private market to make it work for people. A one-size-fits-all-solution will truly be a one-size-fits-no-one. Republicans believe government mandates and controls will risk jobs, raise billions in taxes, lower the quality of health care for millions, and will not address the fundamental problems of our health care system. We believe we should reform the private market, restore common sense to the insurance market, get lawyers out of the way, and allow people to take more control over their own health care decisions. We don't want a cure worse than the disease. 17 The Democrats propose various forms of government health insurance, global budgeting, employer mandates, and national commissions that will decide what services are available and when. As the Atlanta Journal said on March 20, 1992, "The Democrats clearly advocate enlarging government's role in personal health- care decisions. For Americans angered by self-serving politicians, the idea of Congress and bureaucrats controlling a family's health- care benefits is bound to be a disturbing prospect." These ideas prove how much of a crossroads we face this year. If the nation signs on to more government control, we will face in our entire health care system the same skyrocketing costs we have always seen in the government's own health care programs. A plan based on market forces, sound economic principles, and individual choice and control is the only one that will work for America. Republicans believe that the place for control in health care is not in the bureaucracy, it is with people. America should never face the time when people cannot control their own choices in health care. Our proposals promote greater individual control. President Bush's proposal would provide low and moderate income families with non-transferable tax credits to be applied to the purchase of insurance. It would give Americans long-term security by making health insurance available to all, guaranteed, renewable, and available with no preconditions. His proposal would reduce costs. The President would make insurance more affordable through the reforming medical liability, reducing administrative expenses, and encourage coordinated care. 18 Republicans believe we must focus on health, not just health care. We must seek to eliminate the disease and disabilities that harm so many Americans. No government health insurance program can eliminate AIDS, violence, substance abuse and addiction. We must invest in research for cures. And we must look to our families, and our communities to reduce the incidence -- the true cost -- of these illnesses. In health care reform, we must resolve three things. First, how do we keep ourselves and our community in better health? We need to exercise responsibility and values. We must address violence and addiction. Secondly, we must improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of medicine. We can change incentives to produce more cost- reducing technology and less cost-inducing technology. We can use more effectively the products we now have, including drugs, procedures, and devices. Thirdly, we must prepare for the changes the future will bring. Our medical care needs will change dramatically over the next very few years. Medical breakthroughs will raise ethical issues never faced before. Our serious illnesses will be much less a function of acute illness like heart disease, and much more a function of chronic illness like Alzheimer's. We will have to shift our focus to meet those changes. The potentially catastrophic costs of long term care services constitute one of the issues of greatest concern to America's elderly. We must address this issue through private sector 19 solutions. Failure to stimulate the private market and encourage personal responsibility for long term care services will place increasing pressure on State and Federal budgets as the sole support for such services. our domestic agenda to reform health care is: enact legislation to reduce medical liability costs, make health insurance more affordable to small business owners and employees, and make it easier to change jobs without losing coverage. reduce administrative costs by adopting uniform claim and data systems; develop a "smart card" people can use like credit cards; reduce health care costs through better prenatal and other preventative care programs, and greater use of coordinated care in public programs and private insurance; make sure the Medicaid safety net is there for those truly in need of preventive, acute, and long term care services; reduce the burden of regulatory paperwork and redirect those resources to the actual services. Economic Freedom for Families to Flourish Republicans are determined to roll back taxes and regulations that place excessive burdens on our families. 20 Between 1948 and 1990, federal taxes on the average family rose from 2 percent to 24 percent of income. When state and local taxes are included, the tax burden exceeds one-third of family income. Families with children are now the lowest income group in America; their per capita after-tax income is below that of elderly households, single persons, and couples without children. The increase in effective federal tax rates since 1950 costs the average family with children over $8,000 each year. This annual income loss exceeds the annual cost of the average mortgage on a newly purchased home. The picture gets worse: Nearly all of the earnings of the average married woman have been swallowed up by the increase in federal tax rates since 1950. Women today are working not to raise their family's standard of living but to pay Uncle Sam's limitless appetite. Mushrooming federal taxes place a huge strain on family life, forcing parents to work harder and harder and to spend less time with their children. Thus parents today typically spend 40 percent less time with their children than did parents in earlier generations. This is devastating since parents' influence is the most important factor in shaping a child's personal and moral development. A 1988 USA Today survey found that 73 percent of two-parent families would choose to have one parent remain at home full-time to care for their children if they could afford to do so. High taxes prevent this. The high family tax burden is a national scandal. Excessive taxes are destroying the quality of family life, preventing 21 parents from raising children in the manner they judge best, and damaging our children. The 1970s were the worst decade of government plunder; rising federal taxes took 66 cents out of every dollar of increased real family income. Presidents Reagan and Bush have prevented Congress from continuing this escalation. Thanks to their efforts, the 1980s were the first decade since World War II in which the effective federal tax rate on the average family did not increase. In the decade ahead we should dramatically reduce the family tax burden. Mushrooming taxation is not the only financial problem facing American families. Starting in 1970, wage and productivity growth has slowed. Though the 1908s showed dramatic improvements compared with the 1970s, productivity growth rates still did not reach the levels of the 1950s and 1960s. Productivity growth is being strangled by excessive regulation and taxes on investment that are far higher than any of our major international competitors. Lower productivity growth in turn undermines the wage growth of parents and other workers. Reducing excessive regulation and cutting taxes on investment and capital gains will boost U.S. productivity and wages, relieving financial pressures on American families. A recent cost-benefit analysis estimated the total cost of state and federal regulation to be somewhere between $811 billion and $1.656 trillion -- after subtracting benefits. That works out to an average cost of between $8,388 and $17,134 for each American 22 household. Moreover, this estimate explicitly omits a number of categories of regulation for which reliable estimates were not available. By way of comparison, the average household in 1992 will pay about $10,897 in taxes to the federal government. Government regulation, in other words, is a staggering hidden tax. Republicans enthusiastically endorse the President's Council on Competitiveness, chaired by Vice President Quayle, for its work to reform and reduce burdensome regulation. Our domestic agenda for economic freedom for families is: pro-family, pro-growth tax policies that the liberal Democrats have bottled up for years; credits for first-time homebuyers, to make home- ownership more affordable; dramatic increases in the deductions for dependents -- inflation has eroded these deductions to just a small fraction of their original, post World War II value; big increases in the Earned Income Tax Credit -- to reward increases in productivity and self-reliance for families now working to make it on low incomes; elimination of the infamous "marriage penalty." a preference for joint filing; tax credits for parents who adopt children and thus diminish the burden on the foster care system. 23 Living Rightly: Helping Others Moral voices originating in communities, and sometimes embodied in law, exhort, admonish, and appeal to what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature. It is precisely because this important moral realm, which is neither one of random individual choice nor of government control, has been much neglected that we see an urgent need for a to restore these voices to their essential place. [points of light stuff; this is in fact the most important and far reaching of President's proposals]

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Family 1992 [OA 8483]

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