Replies

Content of the Contract
The Contract's actual text was a list of actions the Republicans promised to take if they were in the majority following the election. During the construction of the Contract, Gingrich insisted on "60% issues", meaning that the Contract avoided making promises on more controversial and divisive issues, such as abortion or school prayer. According to Lou Cannon, more than half of its text was taken verbatim from Reagan's 1985 State of the Union Address. The promises were a conservative wish-list, made up of two parts.

[edit] Government reform
On the first day of their majority, the Republicans promised to hold floor votes on eight reforms of government operations:

require all laws that apply to the rest of the country also apply to Congress;
select a major, independent auditing firm to conduct a comprehensive audit of Congress for waste, fraud or abuse;
cut the number of House committees, and cut committee staff by one-third;
limit the terms of all committee chairs;
ban the casting of proxy votes in committee;
require committee meetings to be open to the public;
require a three-fifths majority vote to pass a tax increase;
and implement a zero base-line budgeting process for the annual Federal Budget.

[edit] Major policy changes
During the first 100 days of the 104th Congress, the Republicans pledged "to bring to the floor the [ten] bills, each to be given a full and open debate, each to be given a clear and fair vote, and each to be immediately available for public inspection". The text of the proposed bills was included in the Contract, which was released prior to the election. These bills were not governmental reforms, as the previous promises were; rather, they represented significant changes to policy. The main included tax cuts for businesses and individuals, term limits for legislators, social security reform, tort reform, and welfare reform.

[edit] Effects of the Contract
Some observers cite the Contract with America as having helped secure a decisive victory for the Republicans in the 1994 elections; others dispute this role, noting its late introduction into the campaign, and low level of voter recognition (around 30%). Whatever the role of the Contract, Republicans were elected to a majority, and several parts of the Contract were enacted, though most were not. Some elements did not pass the House, others died in the Senate, or Conference Committee, were vetoed by President Bill Clinton, or were substantially altered in negotiations with Clinton.

Critics of the contract, including Clinton himself, sometimes referred to it as the "Contract on America". [1] (A "contract" on someone is a slang term for a contract killing).

As a blueprint for the policy of the new Congressional majority, Micklethwait & Wooldridge argue in The Right Nation that the Contract placed the Congress firmly back in the driver's seat of domestic government policy for most of the 104th Congress, and placed the Clinton White House firmly on the defensive. However, this clearly changed following the government shutdown in late 1995, which the public overwhelmingly blamed on House Republicans.

[edit] Implementation of the Contract
The Contract had promised 10 bills to implement major reform of the Federal Government. When the 104th Congress assembled in January 1995, the Republican majority sought to implement the Contract.

In some cases (e.g. The National Security Restoration Act and The Personal Responsibility Act), the proposed bills were accomplished by a single act analogous to that which had been proposed in the Contract; in other cases (e.g. The Job Creation and Wage Enhancement Act), a proposed bill's provisions were split up across multiple acts. Most of the bills died in the Senate, except as noted below.

[edit] The Fiscal Responsibility Act
An amendment to the Constitution that would require a balanced budget, unless sanctioned by a 2/3 vote in both houses of Congress (H.J.Res.1, passed by the US House Roll Call: 300-132, 1/26/95; rejected by the US Senate Roll Call: 65-35, 3/2/95, two-thirds required), and provide the president with a line-item veto (H.R.2, passed by the US House Roll Call: 294-134, 2/6/95; conferenced with S. 4 and enacted with substantial changes 4/9/96 [2]).

[edit] The Taking Back Our Streets Act
An anti-crime package including stronger truth-in-sentencing, "good faith" exclusionary rule exemptions (H.R.666 Exclusionary Rule Reform Act, passed US House Roll Call 289-142 2/8/95), death penalty provisions (H.R.729 Effective Death Penalty Act, passed US House Roll Call 297-132 2/8/95; similar provisions enacted under S. 735 [3], 4/24/96), funding prison construction (H.R.667 Violent Criminal Incarceration Act, passed US House Roll Call 265-156 2/10/95, rc#117) and additional law enforcement (H.R.728 Local Government Law Enforcement Block Grants Act, passed US House Roll Call 238-192 2/14/95).

[edit] The Personal Responsibility Act
An act to cut spending for welfare programs by means of discouraging illegitimacy and teen pregnancy. This would be achieved by prohibiting welfare to mothers under 18 years of age, denying increased AFDC for additional children while on welfare, and enacting a two-years-and-out provision with work requirements to promote individual responsibility. H.R.4, the Family Self-Sufficiency Act, included provisions giving food vouchers to unwed mothers under 18 in lieu of cash AFDC benefits, denying cash AFDC benefits for additional children to people on AFDC, requiring recipients to participate in work programs after 2 years on AFDC, complete termination of AFDC payments after five years, and suspending driver and professional licenses of people who fail to pay child support. H.R.4, passed by the US House 234-199, 3/23/95, and passed by the US Senate 87-12, 9/19/95. The Act was vetoed by President Clinton, but the alternative Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act was enacted 8/22/96.