[The EServer] [Government, Law and Society]
13 Myths Promoted by the Far Right
to Support the "Contract on America"
 



MYTH: The "Contract With America" is needed to cut the deficit.
  According to a table "Cost Estimates for 'Contract with America'" released by the Republican-controlled House Budget Committee, the Contract will increase the deficit by $147.9 billion over 5 years. The contract proposes no decrease in military spending, and instead, cuts $45 billion in programs for the poor. The contract proposes $170 billion in tax cuts alone.



MYTH: Most students should be able to pay their own tuition by working; those who now receive financial aid should feel guilty.
  Without student aid or government subsidy college would cost $10,000 - $20,000 a year, and most people who can now attend college would be unable to attend. Already, a large number of potential students cannot even afford state or community college. According to a survey in January 1995 conducted by the American Council on Education, 76% of the public opposes cuts in student aid as a means of reducing the deficit. Governments spending on education is viewed as a necessary investment in the future by many countries. In Mexico, Canada, Cuba, and much of Europe, students pay little or no tuition.



MYTH: Cutting welfare is necessary to balance the budget.
  AFDC (Aid for Families with Dependent Children) is only $22 billion according to the Boston Globe (1% of total federal spending). By comparison, the federal savings and loan bailout cost $150 billion, and the US military budget was $281 billion in 1994. Huge deficits were not created until 1981 when military spending was doubled, and when the progressive taxation system established during the Dwight Eisenhower administration was destroyed by the Phil Gramm/ Warren Rudman tax bill.



MYTH: "Special interest groups" got us into this budgetary mess and should be punished.
  Both Ralph Nader and the Cato Institute agree that more than $100 Billion a year is spent by the government on "corporate welfare" to favor the special interests of particular companies and industries. Considering all the other things (e.g. $500 toilet seats) our tax money has paid for, aren't student aid, school breakfast and lunch, and the social safety net some of the best places to put that money? The new Congressional leadership was soft on corporate welfare until mid-March 1995, when they responded to criticism with a proposed $7.6 billion cut, a drop in the bucket.



MYTH: The results of the last election are a mandate for a right-wing "revolution."
  Only 23% of the people eligible to vote did so in the last election. Of these, only 52% voted for Republican candidates endorsing the "Contract With America." [Source: NY Times, Statistical Abstract of the US.] Right-wing groups have organized a vocal minority to oppose all social programs and support all military and prison programs. Despite what we are led to believe by the Rush Limbaugh show, people are not as meanspirited as the proposals in the "contract." We must awaken and organize the now-silent majority who support compassionate and constructive spending by the government.



MYTH: Immigrants are costing the U.S. lots of money and hurting other working people.
  The United States is a nation of immigrants. With the exception of Native Americans, all of us are in this country as voluntary or involuntary immigrants or as the descendants of immigrants. Many of our ancestors were scapegoated during times of economic crisis. In fact, according to Boston's Campaign for Immigrant Rights, a lower percentage of immigrants receives welfare assistance than the US-born population. Immigrants pay taxes at the rate of one and a half times what they receive in services. [Reports by Michael Fix, Urban Institute, Washington, DC 1994.]



MYTH: The contract is already going to pass, so why protest?
  The president of the country has power to veto legislation. Bill Clinton has every right to exercise his veto power; the only question is, will he? We have time before the 1996 election to turn the mood of voters around by educating ourselves and our communities about the Right's agenda. This action will make it more politically acceptable for the President to veto most of the Contract.



MYTH: People who make money make it all on their own and therefore should keep it all.
  Our ability to make money depends on the entire society -- roads, bridges, research, education, food supply, clean air and water, etc. Our lives are connected to the lives of others who, working less than we do or working harder, may be less "self-sufficient" than we are. When we earn a paycheck, it is only fair that some of that money be invested in the infrastructure for future generations, or to ensure the survival needs of others who may be less fortunate.



MYTH: The "Contract With America" demonstrates concern for families and children.
  If the Personal Responsibility Act were in effect today, well over half of the children now eligible for Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) would be denied assistance. This could mean six million poor children without AFDC. Other cuts could mean 200,000 children expelled from Head Start; 200,000 kicked out of day care, 7.5 million without school lunches, 2 million pregnant women & their infant denied food and milk, 900,000 disabled children receiving SSI losing benefits.



MYTH: the contract stays away from controversial issues such as abortion and homosexuality.
  The Taking Back our Streets Act [sic] would cut off funds used to defend abortion clinics from terrorism. And in early February, a bill was introduced in both the House and Senate that would bar the use of federal funds to "directly or indirectly" condone or accept homosexuality [H.R. 862 and S. 317].



MYTH: The states can better take care of social needs than the federal government. Proposals to transfer money to the states through block grants would be more efficient.
  Block grants as proposed in the Personal Responsibility Act would drastically reduce the amount of money available for these programs. For example, federal food assistance would decline by approximately $17.5 billion over four years. States would be forced to ration AFDC, SSI, and food stamps or raise taxes. States would compete against each other to reduce benefits and keep taxes low in order to attract new business. In times of economic downturn, people would starve as they did during the Great Depression.  Welfare programs such as General Relief financed entirely by states are always the first to be cut. Michigan has entirely abolished its General Relief program, with a resultant increase in hunger and homelessness. [Source: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, "The Personal Responsibility Act: An Analysis," 1995 (202) 408-1080.]



MYTH: Welfare causes teenage pregnancy.
  Research shows that there is no correlation between welfare grants and the rate of births. Since the early 1970s, welfare benefits have fallen sharply in purchasing power while out-of-wedlock childbearing among teens and older women rose. The teen birth rate in the United States is much higher than that in other western industrialized countries having more generous welfare benefits. [Source: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, "The Personal Responsibility Act: An Analysis, 1995"]



MYTH: The congress is only cutting a few social programs, and leaving most intact. Why worry?
  Some Republicans and Democrats in Congress have even suggested the elimination of Pell Grants, Social Security, and Medicaid. Although such cuts may not pass this year, there is every reason to believe that they are next on the chopping block. Look at the propaganda of one radical-right thinktank dedicated to the "elimination, not the reduction or reform, of the welfare state," and judge for yourself:


The Welfare state still stalks the land, sucking the blood out of the living, creating new zombies...We must have the understanding and the courage to say that "social justice" is compulsory redistributive plunder; that the vast majority of society's ills today are not the product of market forces, but the result of a century of increasing state control and planning over every corner of our lives; that the welfare state is socialism; that political paternalism, no matter how packaged and labeled, is a false utopian promise of security; that reform and reconstruction cannot make the welfare state work; [and] that everything the state has taken under its control or political influence must be privatized"
  -- Freedom Daily, January 1995, p. 20
newsletter of the Future of Freedom Foundation.



 Prepared by R. Cowan and B. Mandell for the UCP Center for Campus Organizing, Box 748, Cambridge, MA 02142, <ucp@igc.apc.org>. For a 52-page guidebook, "Uncovering the Right on Campus," please send $7 payable to "University Conversion Project."]