BY NAOMI CRAINE
Driven by the pressure of international competition with
other capitalist powers around the world, the U.S. rulers
are moving, piece by piece, to implement a series of
austerity measures aimed at cutting working people's social
gains and expectations.
On January 26, President Bill Clinton signed a temporary spending bill passed by both houses of Congress that will hold off another government shutdown. The measure, which extends funding for several government departments until March 15, was dubbed the "Balanced Budget Downpayment Act." It implements a number of cuts that had already won bipartisan agreement in negotiations on the federal budget. These include slashing funds for the departments of Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services 25 percent.
Washington is leaving state and local governments much of the dirty work of implementing the social cuts. Sen. James Jeffords from Vermont said that under union contracts, "layoff notices will have to go out in March" if school districts cannot count on federal funding. Detroit mayor Dennis Archer immediately told the press the city's schools would soon lay off 419 teachers because of the cuts. The city administration in Boston is considering a 15 percent cut for its schools as well.
Probes against welfare programs also continue. Members of the House of Representatives are now considering resurrecting a bill that was approved by the Senate last year. Clinton endorsed the plan four months ago, while vetoing a slightly modified version. In his January 23 State of the Union speech, Clinton highlighted the bipartisan agreement to go after welfare. "We agree on time limits, tough work requirements, and the toughest possible child support enforcement," he said.
The president, who campaigned in 1992 on the slogan of "ending welfare as we know it," reiterated his position during the budget negotiations in January. Under his budget proposal, Clinton said, the current program of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) "would be terminated by a new conditional entitlement of limited duration." The bill being reconsidered in Congress would end the 60-year- old guarantee of cash assistance that currently goes to the families of more than 9 million children. Instead, each state government would receive a lump sum to allocate for such programs. As with the cuts in education funding, most of the implementation is left up to the state governments.
In presenting a state budget proposal January 29, Christine Todd Whitman, the Republican governor in New Jersey, called on Clinton to "give New Jersey the green light to end welfare as we've known it - now." Her scheme calls for forcing those receiving welfare payments to work at low-paying jobs and puts a five-year limit on receiving benefits. It would also require mothers under age 18 to live with their parents and disclose the name of their child's father in order to be eligible for assistance. In December, the official unemployment rate in New Jersey shot up to 7.3 percent, from 6.1 percent.
Imperialist competition drives cuts
Clinton and company aren't carrying out this program of
cuts simply out of meanness, only because they are greedy.
They are compelled to follow this course by the economic
laws of capitalism in today's world. They are forced to
compete fiercely with their imperialist rivals because of
the 30-year-long steady decline in their average rate of
industrial profit and because of the particular conditions
of depression the entire capitalist system has been mired in
since the early 1990s.
The capitalist rulers in the United States are several years ahead of their rivals in Europe and Asia in restructuring industry and increasing labor productivity as a result. They've gone further in downsizing, cost cutting, extending the workweek, intensifying speedup on the job, imposing multitier wage scales, and making inroads into the social wage.
But all their competitors - from Bonn to Tokyo to Paris - are pushing to impose similar conditions on working people in those countries. In Germany, for instance, where unemployment has reached nearly 10 percent, the employers and government are demanding cuts in social security totaling $10 billion a year, "wage restraint," and greater labor "flexibility," claiming that's the only way to preserve jobs. The U.S. bosses and their government in Washington must try to find a way to match each move like this, or they lose ground in the scramble for profits.
The budget cuts are not just directed at what the employing class can take away right now, but also at getting workers to internalize the idea that "it's hard times and we need to sacrifice." They're also aimed at dividing the working class by convincing workers to blame one or another portion of the class - those who receive welfare or immigrants, for instance - for the economic and social crisis caused by capitalism.
AFDC and other welfare programs make up a minuscule proportion of government spending. But the ideological campaign against them helps lay the groundwork for future attacks on such entitlements as Social Security. Faced with these bipartisan assaults, the only answer for the labor movement is to lead a fight for jobs for all that can unite working people across borders.
In a warning to the government as a whole to get its priorities straight, Moody's Investors Service threatened January 24 to lower its quality rating on $387 billion in U.S. Treasury debt. The Wall Street credit evaluator was responding to the possibility Washington could default on bond payments and other obligations if the government debt ceiling is not increased before March 1.
House Speaker Newt Gingrich hastily reassured the employing class on a TV news show, "There is no question that we are committed to not having a default." Not making the payments on time would be too costly in shaking confidence in the almighty dollar and in Washington's creditworthiness around the world. But the negotiations over a bill to raise the debt ceiling will be used as another pretext to push through some of the cuts in Clinton and Gingrich's plans.
The events of the last few weeks have made it clear that neither Clinton nor the main Republican contenders in the presidential race offer any vision for a solution to the long-term crisis of capitalism. Instead, much ink and television and radio time is spent on the wrangling among Democrats and Republicans over Hillary Clinton's testimony in front of a grand jury investigating the so-called Whitewater affair.
Clinton did appear to gain some mileage in the media after his State of the Union speech, because he essentially laid out what most in the ruling class agree are the next steps they need to impose, and he is the sitting president.
Sen. Bob Dole, who has led in the polls in the Republican campaign, got panned for his response - a tougher- talking version of the same basic program Clinton laid out.
The Republican Party doesn't have a clear candidate for the November presidential elections. Most, like Dole, present only tactical disagreements with the Clinton administration.
The only bourgeois politician who presents a real alternative perspective and program to the Clinton-Dole duo is Patrick Buchanan, who is using his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination once again to build an incipient fascist movement. But the class struggle hasn't gotten sharp enough for the ruling class to want or need him now as a major contender for the White House.