里根革命建立在妥协之上
一些共和党立法者忘记了政治是关于什么是可能的，而不是什么是完美的。
菲尔·格拉姆
2023 年 2 月 22 日
【Phil Gramm，在我刚到美国时电视里经常出现，以为他年事已高，没想到他还活着，并给出建议，看了看，八十出头】
共和党人对自己造成的伤害最大的莫过于贬低共和党作为财政责任党、更少政府和更多自由的品牌。众议院议长凯文麦卡锡努力让 218 名共和党人投票通过提高债务上限来换取削减开支，这是我们再生的开始。共和党众议院议员可以借鉴里根时代的成功经验。作为那个时代成功的作者之一，我提供了一些 直言（Dutch Uncle ）的建议。
采取里根计划和改变美国的道路是通过痛苦的妥协铺成的。如果你追求完美，那么竞选国会议员就是错误的决定。我从来没有写过或投票过任何不包含我反对的内容的主要立法。如果你不能妥协，你就不能立法或治理。
里根预算、国防建设和减税的每一部分都包含令人痛心的失败和痛苦的妥协。一个痛苦的例子：没有人比我更致力于自由贸易。我的信念是基于证据，而不仅仅是信仰。我了解贸易及其对美国在冷战中的繁荣和成功的重要性。在我进入参议院的第一年，我的核心信念受到了考验，当时我否决了一项征收石油进口费的修正案，将我的政治前途置于危险之中，并且不得不花费长达九个月的时间在整个德克萨斯州捍卫这一投票。
早些时候，在关于 1981 年里根预算和解法案的辩论中，当时的民主党众议员。约翰·布鲁 (John Breaux) 来找我：他和他在路易斯安那州的同事将在所有修正案和最终通过时与我们一起投票，以换取我们承诺不试图扼杀制糖计划——这是政府中最烂的一个程式。它的保护性配额使糖价翻了一番，使极少数特殊利益集团受益。
我尽职尽责地来到白宫，转达布鲁先生的提议。里根问我认为我们应该做什么。当我解释说我来国会不是为了挽救糖计划时，我的大学教授的理想主义让我尴尬地热泪盈眶。里根向我保证，他成为总统也不是为了挽救它。然后他问了一个相关的问题：如果不达成协议，我们能赢吗？我告诉他我不自信。
我讨厌妥协，但和解法案的通过——包括削减开支、增加国防和减税——对国家的未来非常重要，所以我建议总统接受这笔交易，承诺不理会那个制糖计划。里根叹了口气说：“我猜这就是所谓的与猪亲吻吧。”我们在结束通货膨胀、重建经济和赢得冷战方面亲吻了一群猪。这是值得的。
当和解法案通过时，媒体问布罗先生是否真的卖掉了他的选票。 “没有，”他回答说，“我只是出租了它。”政府就是这样运作的。如果你没有妥协的胃口，那就离开国会进入神职人员之类的职位，这样对你自己和国家都有好处。
在辩论的最后一天，由于投票结果仍存疑，我找到了得克萨斯州共和党众议员罗恩保罗，他曾表示他将投票反对和解法案，因为它有赤字。我求他和我们一起投票，因为他的投票可能很关键，但他说他不能。他承诺永远不会投票支持有赤字的预算。我试图解释说，在 1981 年不可能在没有赤字的情况下通过有任何被采纳机会的预算，但没有成功。我经常想知道，如果里根计划失败，罗恩保罗会告诉他的孙子们什么。我猜他会说：是的，美国进地狱是当我在国会的时候，但我每一步都投了反对票。
今天，我请众议院共和党议员记住爱丽丝·卡里 (Alice Cary) 的老诗：“真正的价值在于不装，/每一天做一些小善事——而不是梦想/日后要做的伟大事情。 ”对任何立法的检验是，该国进行变革后是否会比没有变革时更好。如果共和党人应用这个简单的测试，我们现在就可以利用债务上限开始控制大流行病后的支出激增，并在以后利用拨款程序进一步减少支出。这两种变化都不如我们所愿，但国家将从中受益，共和党人需要养成获胜的习惯。
Gramm 是参议院银行委员会的前任主席和美国企业研究所的非常驻高级研究员。
The Reagan Revolution Was Built on Compromise
Some GOP lawmakers have forgotten that politics is about what’s possible, not what’s perfect.
By Phil Gramm
Feb. 22, 2023
Nowhere have Republicans done themselves more harm than in debasing the GOP’s brand as the party of fiscal responsibility, less government and more freedom. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s effort to get 218 Republicans to vote to raise the debt ceiling in exchange for spending cuts is the beginning of our reclamation. Republican House members can learn from the success of the Reagan era. As one of the authors of that success, I offer some Dutch Uncle advice.
The road to adopting the Reagan program and changing America was paved with bitter compromises. If perfection is what you’re after, then running for Congress was the wrong decision. I never wrote or voted for any major legislation that didn’t contain something I opposed. If you can’t compromise, you can’t legislate or govern.
Every part of the Reagan budget, defense buildup and tax cuts contained gut-wrenching defeats and painful compromises. One bitter example: Nobody who ever took the oath of office was more committed to free trade than I was. My conviction was based on evidence, not just faith. I understood trade and its importance to America’s prosperity and success in the Cold War. During my first year in the Senate that core conviction was tested when I put my political future in jeopardy by killing an amendment to impose an oil import fee and had to spend nine long months defending that vote all over Texas.
Earlier, during debate on the 1981 Reagan budget reconciliation bill, Democratic then-Rep. John Breaux came to me with an offer: He and his Louisiana colleagues would vote with us on all amendments and on final passage in exchange for our commitment not to try to kill the sugar program—one of the most rotten in a government festooned with rotten programs. Its protective quota doubled the price of sugar to benefit a very small special interest.
I dutifully trudged down to the White House to relay Mr. Breaux’s offer. Reagan asked me what I thought we should do. In a rush of emotion my college-professor idealism embarrassingly brought tears to my eyes as I explained that I didn’t come to Congress to save the sugar program. Reagan assured me that he didn’t become president to save it either. Then he asked the relevant question: Could we win without cutting the deal? I told him I wasn’t confident.
I hated the compromise, but passage of the reconciliation bill—with its spending cuts, defense increases and tax cuts—was so important to the future of the country that I advised the president to take the deal and commit to leaving the sugar program alone. Reagan sighed and said, “I guess this is what they call kissing the pig.” We kissed a passel of pigs in ending the inflation, rebuilding the economy and winning the Cold War. It was worth it.
When the reconciliation bill passed, Mr. Breaux was asked by the media if it was true that he sold his vote. “No,” he answered, “I just rented it.” That is how government works. If you don’t have the stomach for compromise, do yourself and the country a favor by leaving Congress and going into something like the priesthood.
On the last day of the debate, with the vote still very much in doubt, I approached Rep. Ron Paul, Republican of Texas, who had said he was going to vote against the reconciliation bill because it had a deficit. I begged him to vote with us since his vote might be critical, but he said he couldn’t. He’d made a commitment never to vote for a budget that had a deficit. In vain, I tried to explain that it wasn’t possible in 1981 to write a budget without a deficit that had any chance of being adopted. I have often wondered what he would have told his grandchildren had the Reagan program failed. I guess he would have said: Yeah, America went to hell while I was in Congress, but I voted against it every step of the way.
I ask Republican House members today to remember the old Alice Cary poem: “True worth is in being not seeming,— / In doing each day that goes by / Some little good—not in dreaming / Of great things to do by and by.” The test of any legislation is whether the country is better off with the change than it would have been without it. If Republicans apply that simple test, we can use the debt ceiling to begin to rein in the post-pandemic spending surge now and use the appropriations process to reduce spending even more later. Neither change will be as much as we want, but the country will benefit from both, and Republicans need to get in the habit of winning.
Mr. Gramm is a former chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and a nonresident senior fellow at American Enterprise Institute.