[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 198 (Wednesday, December 13, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S18571-S18572]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               POLLS GET IN THE WAY OF WASHINGTON'S WORK

  Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, the Post and Courier, a Charleston South 
Carolina newspaper, recently had an op-ed piece by our colleague from 
South Carolina that is typical in its Fritz Hollings' bluntness, but 
also typical in its Fritz Hollings' wisdom.
  Two points in his op-ed piece need to be stressed over and over 
again. One is that you cannot lead by taking polls.
  You lead by studying the issues and having some conviction and doing 
something. Leadership that simply follows the polls is leadership in 
name only.
  At all levels of government, we need much more leadership of 
conviction. If we believe we are going to satisfy the public and turn 
away their cynicism by some of the gimmicks that we use, we are only 
fooling ourselves. I agree with the limitations on lobbying and I favor 
a much improved system of financing political campaigns, but if these 
things happen but we continue to govern by polls rather than by looking 
at the national needs, we will get nowhere.
  The second part of this statement is a recognition that we need to 
get additional revenue for the federal government.
  He says accurately, ``We have fiscal cancer and nobody wants to talk 
about it.'' He goes on and says bluntly, ``To put a tourniquet on this 
deficit-debt hemorrhage, we need spending cuts, spending freezes, a 
closing of tax loopholes, denying new programs and tax increases.''
  Our highways are deteriorating compared to those in Western Europe 
when not too many years ago it was the other way around.
  We have a much higher percentage of our children living in poverty 
than any of the Western Europeans countries.
  We are the only western industrialized country that doesn't protect 
all of our citizens with health care insurance.
  These things take revenue, and people in this body and in the 
Administration ought to be talking much more candidly to the American 
public.
  I commend our colleague, Senator Hollings, for being blunt and 
telling us the truth in this article which I ask to be printed in full 
in the Record. The article follows:

               [From the Post and Courier, Nov. 15, 1995]

               Polls Get in the Way of Washington's Work

                    (By Senator Ernest F. Hollings)

       The silent scandal that permeates Washington is the 
     pollster charade. As in Newsweek's Conventional Wisdom Watch, 
     today's Washington is based on who's up and who's down in the 
     polls. Everyone--the president, Congress and the media--
     participates. The result? Nothing gets done and no one really 
     expects anything to get done. Meanwhile, the nation's real 
     needs are ignored. There is no genuine plan to guide us. And 
     plans to put us on a pay-as-you-go basis are simply pollster-
     driven budget schemes fashioned to get politicians past the 
     next election.
       John F. Kennedy started it all 35 years ago in West 
     Virginia. Lou Harris' polls identified hot-button issues of 
     concern and Jack Kennedy played them like a Stradivarius. 
     Political polling immediately became the order of the day. 
     Now even the media wittingly are the engines behind the 
     oppressive reliance on polls. No longer do reporters bow to 
     the who, what, where, when, how and why of fact and accuracy. 
     Instead, they kowtow to pollsters to elicit pithy partisan 
     responses that stem from polls.
       The pollster begins each day with ``divide and conquer.'' 
     Voters immediately are divided into age, sex, race, 
     education, working or retired, married or single, veteran or 
     military, city, suburb or rural. No one is considered an 
     American. They have to be Asian-American, African-American, 
     Irish-American.
       Division is the pollster mentality, but dissembling is the 
     pollster's art. No pollster has served a day in office. But 
     they'll tell you in a minute that you can't break the Sacred 
     Code of the Pollster. If you want to get--and stay--in 
     office:
       Never take a firm position. If you do, you'll divide 
     voters.
       Favoring a proposition will put you at odds with those who 
     oppose.
       Opposing will separate you and those who favor.
       To influence the most voters possible, firmly say that 
     you're ``concerned'' about any issue so you appear 
     understanding and appease both sides.
       Aha! Now any way you slice it, you've identified with the 
     voter. With this kind of soundbite mentality permeating the 
     airwaves, it's easy to understand why there is no 
     leadership in Washington.
       Lee Atwater taught that negative politics is the positive 
     path to political victory. As a result, one of the first 
     ``musts'' for a candidate today is to order negative research 
     on opponents--and himself. Why? To have a prepared answer for 
     any past mistakes or inconsistencies and to be able to unload 
     on an opponent at the end of the campaign when voters finally 
     are interested and there's no time to respond.
       Pollsters also teach both incumbents and challengers to 
     preach change. That's why all candidates sound the same. 
     Republicans and Democrats are all for cutting spending and 
     against taxes; for prisons and against crime; for jobs and 
     against welfare; for education and the environment. And, of 
     course, everyone is for the family. With this emphasis on 
     change and negative politics, the logic of the pollster 
     paradigm is that government is the enemy and problem, not the 
     solution. As such, everyone serving in government must be 
     ousted. Thus, there's the cry for term limits.
       The media's job is to expose this nonsense. But instead of 
     living up to this responsibility, the media have joined the 
     scam. They feast on polls and partisanship. Rather than 
     reporting the news of the day, they make the news with their 
     own polls. Questions by reporters don't delve into an issue 
     but focus on the poll or partisan aspects of the issue. What 
     they want is conflict.
       These days, the pollster charade in the media continues 
     with the ludicrous notion that spending cuts alone can 
     eliminate the deficit. Or worse--that cutting taxes can 
     eliminate the deficit. Nothing could be further from the 
     truth. Since Ronald Reagan's ``voodoo'' that tax cuts could 
     bring in more revenue and eliminate the deficit, the national 
     debt quintupled from less that $1 trillion to almost $5 
     trillion. And instead of eliminating waste in government, we 
     created the biggest waste of all--$348 billion a year in 
     interest costs. Since we can't avoid paying interest costs, 
     we borrow a billion dollars daily, which automatically 
     increases spending a billion, increases the debt a billion 
     and increases interest costs. Every day the cycle starts 
     again.
       Both President Clinton's and Speaker Gingrich's budget 
     plans to get rid of this waste are mere ruses to get past 
     next year's election. But Washington politicians figure--who 
     cares? Who will be around seven years from now? And the 
     media lets them get by with it. Our 1995 budget was $1.52 
     trillion. The 1996 Clinton budget is $1.63 trillion. The 
     1996 Gingrich congressional budget is $1.60 trillion. Both 
     budgets increase spending. Neither keeps up with the $1 
     billion daily increase in the national debt. Over the 
     seven years, spending exceeds revenues by more than $1 
     trillion. The media know this yet continue to report ``a 
     balanced budget by the year 2002.''
       Now comes the bogus proposal to balance the budget by 
     reducing cost-of-living increases for Social Security and by 
     raiding Medicare. By law, Social Security funds are in trust 
     and are not to be used to offset the deficit. Similarly, the 
     Medicare trust fund for hospital costs is in the black, but 
     may go into the red by 2002. In other words, both Social 
     Security and Medicare are paid for and in surplus. What is 
     not paid for this minute is defense, education, farm 
     subsidies, environmental protection, veterans' benefits, law 
     enforcement--general government. We readily increase billions 
     for defense and other programs but are unwilling to pay for 
     it. Thus continues the borrowing, spending and downward 
     spiral that increases the deficit. We have fiscal cancer and 
     nobody wants to talk about it.
       To put a tourniquet on this deficit-debt hemorrhage, we 
     need spending cuts, spending freezes, a closing of tax 
     loopholes, denying new programs and tax increases. But 
     proposals to do this go unreported. As such, the 

[[Page S18572]]
     public believes spending cuts alone will do the job. And the media 
     validate bogus plans to cut taxes as serious moves to balance 
     the budget. That we really are broke is ignored.
       Rather than being pollster pawns, the media should serve as 
     an institutional memory to give up perspective. With the Cold 
     War over, it's time to rebuild our economy. More than ever, a 
     strong government is needed--for education, job training, 
     research, housing, transportation, technical development and 
     inner-city needs.
       But the media treat government as the enemy.
       In a silent conspiracy with pollsters and Washington 
     politicians, the media masquerade opinion polls as fact and 
     validate the politics that any tax increase is poison. All 
     the time, the rebuilding of America goes wanting and neither 
     the Clinton nor the Dole/Gingrich forces can talk sense. The 
     train wreck is a media production.

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