Winner-Take-All Politics Feeds Militarization
by Steven Hill
Throughout the many months leading up to war, most Americans remained
unconvinced that war was the right course, particularly without a
United Nations endorsement. Yet Congress seemingly did not reflect the
nation's mood. There were few voices of congressional opposition, even
among Democratic Party leaders, despite polls showing that Democratic
voters were opposed to war by nearly two to one.
The reasons for this are linked to the most fundamental aspects of our
winner-take-all elections. Under the sway of pollsters, consultants,
and strategists, Democratic leaders typically bend over backwards not
to appear weak on defense. They have made the calculation that the
voters who always vote for them will continue to do so, no matter what
their stands on Iraq or Middle East policy, because those voters are
not about to vote for Republicans. So these liberal and progressive
voters mostly can be ignored.
Instead, Democrats target their positions in such a way as to attract
more conservative swing voters and independents, those undecided
voters that determine winners in close races. Polls show this group
has been evenly split over the question of war.
This is a calculated gambit by the Democratic Party leadership. Some
of the Democratic House members would like to be more outspoken
against the war, but they don't dare buck their leadership. And
without a third party in the Congress like a Green Party that is
unequivocally against the war, most debate and dialogue came to a
standstill long ago.
Consequently, neither Congress nor the president was pressured to
reveal how much the Iraqi invasion would cost, even though common
sense said it would be fed by cutting other needed programs, including
the chances for national health care, prescription drug benefits, and
even adequate funding for homeland security.
But this is nothing new. Winner-take-all calculations always have
produced bloated military budgets full of pork barrel waste and
bipartisan brinkmanship. The story of the October 1999 military
appropriations illustrates some of the worst dynamics resulting from
our winner-take-all system.
In the spring of 1998, the conventional wisdom in Washington was that
the military budget would remain steady at about $270 billion per year
through 2002, as called for in the 1997 balanced budget agreement. But
then came the impeachment attack in the summer. By the fall of 1998,
key Republican hawks in Congress and the Joint Chiefs of Staff decided
that a president facing impeachment charges was ripe to be shaken down
for more military spending. They presented Clinton with their demands,
and to save his presidency Clinton took steps to placate this powerful
military constituency.
Clinton pledged a $1.1 billion increase for "military readiness," but
in the inevitable horse trading needed to close the deal, Congress
transformed the increase into a $9 billion grab bag of pet pork
projects. GOP Sen. John McCain described it as "the worst pork in
recent memory." The pork included billions more for Star Wars, F-15
fighters, helicopters, and more awarded to the home areas of Speaker
Newt Gingrich, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, and House Minority
Leader Dick Gephardt. Successive rounds of one-upmanship continued
into 1999, pushing the price tag beyond what the Pentagon even had
requested.
Careful analysis reveals how winner-take-all incentives drove this
policy debacle. First came the impeachment attack--driven by
Republicans in the House selected by their leadership because they
represented heavily partisan districts where re-election was assured.
Second, the partisan impeachment attack created an opening for the
military and congressional hawks to shake down a weakened president.
Once the pigskin was put into play, successive rounds of bipartisan
brinkmanship upped the ante--and the price tag--creating a pork barrel
feeding frenzy.
Third, just like now with the Iraqi war, Clinton and the Democrats
believed that, as the 2000 election year approached, their
pro-military positioning helped them with the more conservative swing
voters and insulated them from the charge of being "soft on defense."
The real losers were the American taxpayer and those desiring a
peacetime economy. The military budget passed in October 1999 was the
largest increase since the Reagan era, even though it already was more
than twice that of the combined military budgets of every conceivable
adversary.
Even before September 11, our winner-take-all system offered powerful
incentives for pork barrel gluttony, political positioning, courting
of swing voters, and partisan pit bull attacks that have ensured that
the militarization of the federal budget has rolled along as
bipartisan policy.
Steven Hill is senior analyst for the Center for Voting and Democracy
(www.fairvote.org) and
author of Fixing Elections: The Failure of
America's Winner Take All Politics (Routledge Press,
www.FixingElections.com).
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