What Is the Commitment to America?

            House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and other House Republican leaders recently rolled out a plan that they are calling a “Commitment to America.” As with all other issues, Democrats are spreading lies about the new plan. With this plan, Democrats are claiming that the Republicans are going to end Social Security and Medicare as well as harm children.

            The “Commitment to America” is a sequel to the “Contract With America” of 1994 put forth by then-Representatives Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and Dick Armey (R-Texas). The new plan carries some of the same ideas as the old one that created the first House majority for Republicans in forty years. Cal Thomas had the following to say in comparing the two plans. 

The 1994 contract had many things going for it, but chief among them was that everyone could understand it. The contract contained 10 promises and was reduced to the size of a full-page ad in the then widely distributed TV Guide magazine. Voters could also carry copies in their wallets and purses.

Not all of the contract’s objectives were achieved after Republicans’ victory, including congressional term limits and a constitutional amendment to force balanced budgets, but those that did were astoundingly successful.

While Democrats screamed like scalded dogs and promoted doomsday scenarios, President Bill Clinton correctly gauged the mood of the country, declaring that “the era of big government is over.” If only.

The Clinton-Gingrich welfare reform bill was a major achievement of the contract. The Left claimed that poor people would starve. They didn’t. Most of the able-bodied among them found jobs, which benefited them and the country.

Taxes were cut and in 1998 the federal budget was balanced and stayed balanced through 2001. Hard as it is to believe with today’s $30 trillion debt, the country experienced a surplus of $236 billion in 2000.

Economic growth was 4% or higher from 1997 through 2000 and unemployment rates, which had been above 7% at the beginning of the decade, fell to less than 5% in 1997. By the end of 2000, unemployment was under 4%.

For three straight years—from 1997 through 1999—the economy produced more than 3 million jobs, a record.

It is undeniable that the Contract With America worked.

If the “Commitment to America” is as successful as the “Contract With America,” it will fulfill every nightmare of the Democrats may have. Thomas claims that the new plan will work if all the goals “are rooted in the history of what has worked before – lower taxes, less spending, personal responsibility and accountability, empowering parents, not teachers’ unions.”

Newt Gingrich worked well with President Bill Clinton, and the United States had a balanced budget for four years. No one expect President Joe Biden to work with the Republicans because he is controlled by the hard Left who will not compromise on anything. One way to give the new plan more chances for success is for voters to vote RED in 2022 and 2024.