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While at a social gathering in Buena Vista last weekend, I ran into a Republican. In Buena Vista, Republicans are about as common as registered voters (perhaps even more common, if the dark mutterings of some local Democrats can be credited), so the encounter was no surprise.
The Republican was pretty happy. We've finally taken
over Congress,
he announced.
Who's we? Do you have a mouse in your pocket?
I
was in a querulous mood, and probably should have stayed
home.
But Chaffee County is a rather fragmented place where the north and south ends avoid each other. In 17 years here, this was the first time I'd ever been invited to a social event in Buena Vista, and I didn't want to miss this rare opportunity.
No mouse in my pocket,
the Republican replied.
Why aren't you happy? Aren't you a married middle-aged
white guy, no college degree, small-town hick, tenuous
economic existence, two children?
That covers my demographic profile pretty well,
I
conceded. And all the pollsters say that we are the
oppressed group that revolted and put Republicans in
control of the House and Senate.
Right,
the Republican said. So you should be
thrilled, right?
I don't know. Seems to me that if we were all that
good at running things, we'd be rich and we'd be in charge
of something besides ma-and-pa businesses in the middle of
nowhere. We're pretty good at fixing cars and computers,
but I'm not sure we're up to the challenge of determining
the course of the world's only superpower.
Maybe so,
he conceded, but you've got to admit
that the procedural reforms are long overdue: term limits
for the speaker and committee chairs, open almost all the
hearings to the press and public, requiring Congress to
live by the same rules it makes for everybody else.
Knowing Congress, it will find a way around the
rules, why have term limits if somebody's doing the job,
and we all know about Chancellor Bismarck's remark that
people shouldn't see what goes into sausages and
legislation. But that's just grousing. They're good ideas
and they should have been tried long ago. Seeing Newt
Gingrich on every magazine cover is a small price to pay
for some overdue reforms of Congress.
Glad to see you're coming around.
The Republican
took a deep, expansive breath. I think it's morning in
America.
Mourning in America?
I was surprised, given his
jubilant tone.
Morning, as in sunrise, as in dawn, as in the great
Reagan years,
he explained.
Those years weren't so great around here,
I
noted, so what makes you think things are going to be so
great from here on?
They're already better. I know you're skeptical, but
I have solid numbers to prove it.
I pressed for the hard facts.
For starters, did you know that there were two
murders and a suicide in Chaffee County since Bill Clinton
was inaugurated as president, but that there hasn't been a
single murder or suicide since Newt Gingrich was sworn in
as speaker of the House of Representatives?
No, I didn't realize that, but when I think about it,
you're absolutely right
And since Gingrich came in, no high school has
graduated a class with any functional illiterates, as
opposed to all those classes since Clinton. I just checked
with the local hospital -- about 20 babies born in this
county to unmarried teen-aged mothers since the Clinton
inauguration, and not one, not a single one, born since
Newt took over the House of Representatives and Bob Dole
resumed his service as senate majority leader.
That's truly amazing,
I marveled, wondering if
the punch was making me giddy. Do you have any national
statistics, or is all this improvement just a local
phenomenon?
The national debt increased by about $500 billion
since Clinton. Since Gingrich, perhaps $5 billion, if that
much. Now if that's not progress toward reducing the
deficit, what is?
I had no idea that things had turned around that
quickly, and expressed my admiration. Now that you
mention it, I know there haven't been as many drive-by
shootings since Newt, and I bet that applications for food
stamps, welfare and unemployment compensation are way down
in 1995 compared to the dreadful Clinton years of 1993 and
1994.
And since Newt got in, have you seen or heard
anything about a mother drowning her own children and then
blaming it on a car-jacker of a different race, which is
the inevitable result of allowing Democrats to hold office
in this country?
I agreed that if such a tragedy had occurred, I missed
it. I guess things are better now. When I think of all
the sordid stuff -- the O.J. trial, Rwanda, Bosnia, the
fall of the peso -- none of that happened on Newt's watch.
He was just a congressman from suburban Atlanta
then.
Exactly,
the Republican said. And things will
continue to get better. The trend is already clear.
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