This page was last updated on July 31, 2004.

For this letter I’ll look at two issues, reasoning and accuracy of facts.

By reasoning I mean, “Assuming the facts and other conclusions are correct, is it reasonable to blame Republicans?”

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“The 10-member National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United States revealed the federal government’s inability to detect and defend against terrorist attacks.”

[RWC] For the rest of us, this commission is more commonly known as the 9/11 Commission.

“Forgotten is the election of 1994 when the Republicans proclaimed that if they gained control of the U. S. House of Representative [sic], they would cut the federal/congressional budget, vote on a balanced-budget amendment, and vote for a line-item veto.  In short, they wanted to create a smaller but stronger government.”

 [RWC] The President prepares the budget, not Congress.  Congress must pass the appropriations, but the budget is a White House product.

An amendment requires a 2/3 “yea” vote in both the House and Senate before it can be sent to the states for ratification.  The balanced budget amendment passed in the House in 1995 but failed in the Senate in 1997 by only one vote (66-34).  Every Senate Republican plus 11 Democrats voted for the amendment.  Since all Senate Republicans voted for the amendment, and they persuaded 11 Democrats to do likewise, does Mr. Drobac blame Republicans for failure to pass the balanced budget amendment?  The record shows Republicans did their best, but were thwarted by Democrats.

Congress passed a line-item veto law in 1996 and it took effect on January 1, 1997.  That’s right.  A Republican-majority Congress voted to give a Democrat president the line-item veto.  Again, Republicans did what they promised.  Unfortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court on June 26, 1998, ruled 6-3 that the law (Public Law No: 104-130) was unconstitutional.

“The Republicans won and it changed the course of America - for the worse.

“The Securities and Exchange Commission had its budget cut, causing it to be less effective.  A less effective SEC (smaller and weaker government) could not properly detect and monitor the business practices of American corporations.”

[RWC] Liar, liar, pants on fire! <g>  According to the SEC web site, the SEC budget increased every year since at least 1996.  In fact, the SEC 2001 budget was over 1.4 times the 1995 budget.¹

The first budget for which a Republican-majority Congress voted was fiscal year 1996.  When the Republicans elected in November 1994 took office in January 1995, the 1995 budget had already been in place for a few months.

“The federal government and investors lost millions of dollars because of accounting irregularities at companies like Enron, Investors Associates, Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Worldcom.”

[RWC] One way you can tell a person is a socialist is when he says things like “the federal government lost millions of dollars.”  The dollars never belonged to the government in the first place, so it could not lose them.  Profits belong to the shareholders, not the government.  Shareholders were the ones who lost millions, not the government.

In the string of companies listed, Mr. Drobac forgot to mention ULLICO, a union-owned life insurance company.  I wonder why. <g>

In any case, you can’t blame the criminal activity on the SEC.  A relative handful of corrupt businesspersons committed the crimes, not the SEC.

“Like the SEC, the Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency had their budgets cut, causing them to be less effective.  Instead of using the money budgeted to expand, upgrade and improve their operations, these agencies were forced to use the funds just to maintain daily operations.”

[RWC] According to the 2005 budget documents, the Department of Justice (parent department of the FBI) budget increased every year from 1996 through 2001.²  The DOJ 2001 budget was nearly double the 1995 budget.  The budget documents don’t have a year-by-year breakdown for the FBI alone.

Because the CIA and NSA budgets are classified, I can’t confirm or refute Mr. Drobac’s claim.  This makes you wonder where Mr. Drobac got his data.  Given Mr. Drobac’s track record with the FBI and the SEC, I doubt his claim.  To the best of my knowledge, the only budget figure made public was the total CIA figure for 1997, $26.6 billion.

Note, most people agree there were significant intelligence budget cuts in the few years immediately following the end of the Cold War.  Everyone clamored for a “peace dividend” with respect to intelligence and military spending.  Those cuts came well before Republicans became the majority party in Congress, however.  Even so, I imagine those early 1990s cuts might have occurred even with a Republican-majority Congress.

“A less effective CIA, FBI, and NSA (smaller and weaker government) contributed to their inability to detect and defend against terrorist activities and the attacks of the al Qaida both inside and outside the United States.”

[RWC] Did we need to spend more on national defense?  Perhaps.  Or perhaps we just needed to spend more effectively.  I don’t know.  Spending more money can’t lead to success unless you spend it effectively.  Regardless, published documents refute the claim of budget cuts since 1996.

“Ronald Reagan once said, ‘Government is not a solution to our problem; government is the problem.’

“I guess Reagan was wrong.  Reagan should have said, ‘The Republicans are not the solution to our problems; the Republicans are the problem.’”

 [RWC] Reagan was right, unless you believe the Jimmy Carter years (double-digit inflation, double-digit unemployment, double-digit mortgage rates, gasoline lines and rationing) were the good old days.

Having dealt with the accuracy of Mr. Drobac’s “facts,” let’s look at his reasoning.  Even if Mr. Drobac’s allegations had been correct, wasn’t President Clinton a Democrat?  Doesn’t the President prepare the budget?  Didn’t he sign the appropriation bills passed by Congress?  Could he not have vetoed those bills?  If Democrats in Congress found the budgets unacceptable, why didn’t Senate Democrats filibuster the bills as they do now with anything they don’t like?  Remember, the Republican majority was nowhere near large enough to override a veto or force cloture of a filibuster without the votes of a lot of Democrats.  Therefore, the apparently non-existent cuts would have been a joint venture of both parties, not just one.

Another way Mr. Drobac shows his blind partisanship is by blaming Republicans for alleged budget cuts yet praising former President Clinton in other letters for budget surpluses during a couple of those years.  If you want to blame budget cuts on Republicans, don’t you need to give them some credit for the surpluses?

Why do some people feel they must mislead us?

1. SEC Budget History vs. Actual Expenses; U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission; April 2, 2003.

2. The Budget for Fiscal Year 2005, Historical Tables; Office of Management and Budget; U.S. Government printing Office; 2004.

© 2004 Robert W. Cox, all rights reserved.