European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 29, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Monday August 29, i 994 commentary the stars and stripes Page 13 Only gop votes save starved White House it was almost As if the republicans had found a Way to steal credit for pass ing social Security from Franklin Roose velt and the democrats. Crime spoken almost in a single burst As Tough on crime had be longed to the gop for a generation. For 25 years grumbled sen. Phil Gramm a Texas basically democrats have been coddling criminals and now the democrats were taking the Issue away. The republicans on the Penny Pinch ing Side of a popular Issue were left to complain that the democrats were proposing to spend too much on crime. Not much of an argument when polls show americans consider the nightly death toll the most important problem con fronting the coun try. The democrats had a counter to that anyway. It was t pork that the republicans really objected to they said but  guns the republicans barely mentioned guns in the debate but the democrats did. It s guns guns guns guns guns guns that motivated Republican opposition said sen. Joseph Biden democratic floor manager. The democrats sensed that the american people have formed a consensus on gun control they want it. The National Rifle  is Able to flood the Capitol with faxes and Shower its friends with Campaign donations but in the end it could t raise  for leaving ak-47s and grenade launchers on the streets. The crime Bill to build prisons in crease the number of death penalty crimes and help pay salaries of 100,000 police for six years republicans said the Money was enough for Only 20,000 Al most died in the House earlier. Mike Feinsilber it took weekend negotiations and minor democratic concessions and a sunday afternoon debate to revive it. It almost died in the Senate last thursday too but six republicans came to the democrats Rescue. Sen. John Danforth r-mo., retiring from politics and with nothing to gain or lose said he Felt Lousy just terrible abandoning his party but the nation needed a crime Bill. He said there were plenty of other is sues on which the republicans could draw a difference with the democrats crime should t be one. Five other republicans gave Simi Lar reasons. After the fight was All but Over and passage of the Bill was inevitable Danforth stood in the Back of the Senate chamber and spelled out his Rea sons for his action. He was in favor of what the republicans called pork and what the democrats called crime prevention. Double the number of prisons in american every decade he said and you la still have americans cowering in their Homes cursing the dark afraid of their streets. Put a cop on every Corner he said and you won t control crime. Prevention s the answer said Dan Forth. What s wrong he asked with mid night basketball leagues for Young men with time on their hands with keeping schools open into the night in places where the streets Are unsafe with Job training programs and counselling the Senate vote 61-38, came after two weeks of intense debate and six years of congressional deadlock and with 10 weeks to go before an election. It came to a White House starved for a Success. At every turn. Trouble glares at Clinton. The cuban refugees could turn into an explosive political Issue. The generals remain secure in Haiti. Nuclear material thefts Are a worry. Whitewater has a Tough new inde pendent prosecutor. And on health care the president who last january waved the veto pen if he did t get Universal coverage May have to you wih some you lose it rep Eeme with no quest10h3 asked Settle for choosing Between e of first principles. As the Federal government buckles beneath the George f. Will weight of burdens it has taken on indiscriminately and As Washington s Confidence cracks under the buffeting of its failures and the Public s disdain there is an in creasing readiness on the part of portions of the Public and the political class to ask three threshold questions that should be asked before government does anything is this something govern ment can do is this something government should do is this something the Federal govern ment should do As these questions Are asked with increasing insistence political strife is bound to Sharpen. This summer s two great de Bates have concerned an expensive expansion of Feder Al involvement in the fundamentally state and local business of crime control and a Radical expansion of Federal intervention into an especially Complex and sensitive sphere of. Life health care. The ferocity of these debates has dismayed washing ton where the word bipartisanship is on Many lips when those lips Are not tightly pursed in disapproval of the ferocity. Bipartisanship is a recipe for Washington s endless aggrandisement and for lowest common de nominator legislating. The cult of bipartisanship believes that just legislating the Mere production of what there already is too much of Laws is proof that the system and hence the political class is  but bipartisanship depends on a consensus about government s purposes a consensus that no longer exists a consensus that it has been the business of con temporary conservatism to shatter. Clinton has been marinated All his adult life in government and May actually believe that the consensus of the political class in his formative years the 1960s, the great society and All that is somehow equivalent to the american system of  Gore May really believe that the american to a is the idea of government he got while growing up in Washington in the 1960s. But these relatively Young men with their rhetoric that is both heated and quaint seem remarkably antiquated. Richard Snow editor of american heritage notes How compressed american history is Robert e. Lee was Light horse Harry Lee s son after All and there were men around in 1861 who had fought King George s soldiers to establish the nation that they were seeing fall  that was an approximately 80-year Span. Today the compression of history is illustrated by the 60-year Span Between the coming of the new Deal and the coming apart of the Faith that suffused it the Faith in the Feder Al government As instigator of social Progress. There Are elderly people in Washington who helped raise the curtain on that Era and who Are now seeing the curtain drop. They probably Are As the elderly often Are Calm about America s course corrections. It is the younger people Here who write $30 billion crime Bills and 1,400 Page health care Bills and extravagantly say that the troubles such things encounter Call into question the american system of government and the american  c Washington Post