Former U.S. President Bill Clinton called the governing agenda Republicans unveiled today an “ideological document” and warned that it would be implemented at the expense of America’s middle class. “They don’t know that the model for success in the 21st century is a vigorous private sector, an effective government, a partnership, not these hysterical tirades against government,” Clinton said in an interview for Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt” at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York.
With less than two months before congressional midterm elections, House Republicans announced a governing agenda today that would cut federal spending, extend expiring tax cuts and repeal the Democrats’ health-care law.
The plan, titled “A Pledge to America,” is patterned after the “Contract with America,” which House Republicans unveiled in 1994, during Clinton’s first term. Six weeks after that platform was presented, the party swept the midterm elections, gaining a majority in the House for the first time in 40 years.
Clinton, 64, said the Republican agenda would cut aid to middle-class and lower-income Americans by 25 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars and damage education initiatives. He said the Republican proposals would hurt U.S. economic competitiveness globally.
“Their objective for 30 years has been to dismantle the federal government,” he said. “They have a model for the future that none of our competitors have embraced.”
‘More for Less’
“They want everybody else to pay more for less government,” Clinton said. “And none of it has anything to do with our competitive position. It’s an ideological document.”
The agenda outlines “our intent and how we will stand together and move this country forward,” Representative Pete Sessions, a Texas Republican, told reporters yesterday.
It would repeal President Barack Obama’s health-care law and replace it with longstanding Republican priorities such as controlling medical-malpractice costs, expanding health-savings accounts and allowing people to buy insurance policies across state lines. It would provide health coverage to the costliest Americans to insure by expanding high-risk pools and reinsurance programs.
House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio was an architect of the 1994 plan as well as the new version. Democrats regained the House majority in 2006.
The program was released by party leaders at a hardware store in Sterling, Virginia, as Republicans make their case to voters to retake the House majority in the Nov. 2 elections.
