THE FATE OF THE UNION
January 28, 1998
It was just a couple of years ago that Bill Clinton raved in his State of the Union Address
that 'the era of big government is over.' Typical of his catchy phases to mislead people, it
was in reality not very connected to the realities of his policy initiatives. If anyone not
paying strict attention to him since then had missed that point, he made it clearer than ever
in his presentation of late January 1998. Clinton drolled on for more than an hour with a long
laundry list of how he proposed to have the government solve more of our problems for
us by taking away more from us. In truth, he looked beleagured, as well he might,
operating under the shadow of the media's recent discovery of his insobriety of law and
self-control. It was a sorry display.
There were some obvious contradictions thrown out with the compendium. It is difficult
to comprehend that he would genuinely believe that anyone could swallow his line that he
was responsible for the balanced budget, or that it would be continuing into the
foreseeable future, given the price tag of his trumpeted extensions of federal authority.
Foremost among these was his pronouncement that a solution would be found to the
impending social security and medicare insolvencies. Of course, what he has in mind is
tremendous increases in social security and medicare taxes. Rather than solving the crisis
by weeding out the garden, he wants to sow more weeds into the patch, and stymie
economic growth with a heavily increased tax burden.
But he also dragged out the tired old saw of an increase in minimum wage, and added to it
a proposal to allow those over fifty to begin to buy into medicare. What his
pronouncement came down to is not the end of the era of big government, but the
replacing of the century of big government with a millenium of bigger, all inclusive
government. Whether he makes it through the remainder of his term without falling victim
to his piccadillos, he has nonetheless cast a dark shadow across the new era he described
us as entering.
On the Today Show the morning of the State of the Union Address, Mrs. Clinton came
out swinging. She proclaimed that the whole 'crisis' was a concoction of a 'vast right wing
conspiracy,' apparently orchestrated by Jerry Falwell, which has been trying to undo the
results of 'the last two elections' with fabrications about the Clintons which have included
murder and drug-running. But in his speech, Clinton kept talking about bipartisanship! It
was an interesting cap to a series of bizarre utterances out of the White House inner circle.
The two are clearly not going to go out with a whimper. She wouldn't agree with Carville
that this was 'war,' but did brand the situation as the 'last battle.' It is difficult to see how
Clinton can wiggle out of this one, but he has done so repeatedly before. The issue is not
infidelity -- though Rodham's legal opinion twenty four years ago was that impeachment
rested on grounds of fitness for office; what matters is illegalities -- pergury, the
encouragement of pergury, obstruction of justice, witness tampering, and the like, though a great many
Americans will take serious exception to the nonsensical statements coming out of the
White House about conspiracy and adultery and the like, as well as the acts themselves.
What matters most, in the long run, is the impact of all of this on policy. In a real sense,
this is but a battle in a long conflict. What is important, then, is the substance of the
address, even if it gets momentarily lost in the furor over Clinton's fitness for office. And,
in light of that, it is important to consider the content of the address, even beyond the
weariness of the presentation, the hollowness of the response, or the turmoil of the
environment from which it was given.
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