The Masters of Mean
Gramm and Armey
Commentary: Goodbye to Phil Gramm and Dick Armey, the last of a bitter breed of Texas politician.
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Hail and farewell to two of the meanest guys ever to serve in the U.S. Congress -- Senator Phil Gramm and House Majority Leader Dick Armey, both from Texas. What a barrel of knee-slapping fun they have been. As each winds up his final year in office, we could have a fine time recalling their Meanest Moments: The side-splitting occasion when Armey referred to Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts as "Barney Fag." The rib-tickling time Gramm wanted to deny food stamps to elderly legal immigrants on the splendid grounds that extending aid would only foster dependency, thereby incicting "a new personal tragedy on the most vulnerable among us."
Armey and Gramm represent the last of a certain style of antigovernment politician. Their favorite joke is that the 10 most-dreaded words in the English language are "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you." They built their political careers by opposing everything the government does to help people, constantly disparaging and attacking the institutional form of the people's power. Corporate welfare is fine with Gramm, just not anything to help people; Armey, the true-believer ideologue, was at least more consistent, rejecting almost all forms of government spending.
Armey and Gramm's joint retirement, along with that of Jesse Helms, marks the end of a particularly nasty kind of politics. Even Republicans now prefer a softer edge, a warmer and fuzzier approach. The result is the same, but "compassionate conservatism" goes down a lot smoother.
Armey, that noted wit, once described himself as "really one of the funniest guys I know." He also has described himself as "a man totally without guile." Reviewing his career, one suspects self-knowledge is not his forte. Of course, there was that hilarious time he said of Hillary Clinton, "Her thoughts sound a lot like Karl Marx. She hangs around a lot of Marxists. All her friends are Marxists." He later explained he was just "spoofing."
In 1997, Armey and Tom DeLay, his fellow congressman from Texas, were involved in an abortive coup against then-Speaker Newt Gingrich. When it failed, Armey lied to his colleagues about what he had done, denying any role in the plot. In politics, this is the ultimate sin. You may lie to your mother, your wife, and your constituents, but not to your fellow legislators. Once Armey's lies were exposed by several Republican members, it was generally accepted that he could never be speaker.
His inability to own up to his own mistakes was also on display when he made his "Barney Fag" comment during an interview with several radio reporters in 1995. Rather than just admit his error and apologize, Armey denounced the media for reporting the story, insisting that he had merely stumbled over Frank's name. His jaw trembling, Armey said he had raised his kids to be respectful of other people. "To have my five children or anybody else's five children turn on their TV today and see a transcript of a mispronunciation on the air as if I had no sense of decency, cordiality, or even good manners is unacceptable and is an act in itself that is indecent." Here was Armey in a favored role: the victim, the outsider, being attacked by the Establishment. At the GOP convention in 2000, Armey made another tasteless joke at Frank's expense to six journalists.
For years, Armey told the story of Charlie, a janitor at North Texas State when Armey taught there. According to Armey, Charlie was a retarded man who loved his job; then in 1977, the federal government raised the minimum wage, and Charlie was fired because the university couldn't afford to keep him on anymore. A month later, Armey saw Charlie in a grocery store with his wife and infant child, buying provisions with food stamps. "My heart's been broken about it ever since," Armey often lamented.
Unfortunately, no one else who worked at the university at the time had any memory of Charlie. What's more, the chancellor explained, janitors at North Texas are state employees, so the federal minimum wage would not have applied to any "Charlie."
Armey is a no-compromise, free-market ideologue: His great heroes are Adam Smith and Milton Friedman. He is so devoted to free-market ideals that he wants to abolish Social Security and the home mortgage deduction, along with the minimum wage, and replace the progressive income tax with a flat tax. He once wrote an academic paper claiming that housewives are overpaid. As these things go in Washington, he was fairly consistent about opposing federal spending, although he did support some pork-laden horrors. His single major contribution to the nation's weal was to join Ron Dellums, the progressive congressman from California, in sponsoring a plan that succeeded in taking the political pain out of deciding which military bases to close. Armey's plan to return American farmers to the free market went less well: Today, fewer family farmers get subsidies, thanks to Armey, and more big corporate farmers get bigger ones.
Like Armey, Phil Gramm is fond of posing as a picked-upon outsider whenever he screws up. But Gramm has done far more damage to the public interest-and his record of hypocrisy is remarkable, even by Washington standards. Gramm has always posed as a right-wing populist, looking out for the little guy against the terrible Washington politicians who are wasting the hardworking taxpayer's dollar: His Everyman was Dicky Flatt, a printer in Mexia, Texas, and Gramm's supposed lodestar has been, "What would Dicky do?" In fact, Gramm has been an assiduous servant of large corporate interests, routinely supporting legislation that screwed the Dicky Flatts of the world.
Gramm both looks like a snapping turtle and has the personality of one. When he ran for president in 1996 and finished fifth in Iowa, all the profiles written of him included the line "Even his friends don't like him." Self-righteous and strident, Gramm demonized his opponents and used bitter, polarizing rhetoric. During a Senate debate over Social Security, a member pointed out that the proposal under consideration would hurt 80-year-old retirees. "Most people don't have the luxury of living to be 80 years old," Gramm scoffed, "so it's hard for me to feel sorry for them." Well, there is that.
On another occasion, Gramm ridiculed a newspaper photo of poor people who were forced to cut corners to put food on the table. "Did you see the picture?" Gramm asked a crowd. "Here are these people who are skimping to avoid hunger and they are all fat!... We're the only nation in the world where all our poor people are fat." During the fight over health care reform, Gramm said, "We have to blow up this train and the rails and the trestle and kill everyone on board." When an elderly widow in Corsicana told him that cutting Medicare would make it more difficult for her to remain independent, Gramm said, "You haven't thought about a new husband, have you?"
When he first ran for Senate in 1984, Gramm's main attack ad focused on how his opponent, a young state senator, had received a check for $600 raised by a gay group at a male strip joint in San Antonio. He had not solicited the contribution and promptly returned it, but Gramm ran lurid ads about the gay strip show for months.
His tactics have not won him any friends among Texas politicians. Gramm is notorious for letting Texas congressmen do all the work of getting federal projects in their districts and then stepping up to claim credit when the project is approved. The noun for this is "Grammstanding," and it is now part of the political lexicon.
Gramm, the great crusader against government spending, has spent his entire life on the government tit. He was born at a military hospital, raised on his father's Army pay, went to private school at Georgia Military Academy on military insurance after his father died, paid for his college tuition with same, got a National Defense Fellowship to graduate school, taught at a state-supported school, and made generous use of his Senate expense account. In 1987, a Dallas developer named Jerry Stiles flew a construction crew to Maryland to work on Gramm's summer home. Stiles spent $117,000 on the project but was kind enough to bill Gramm only $63,433. When Stiles got in trouble for misusing funds from a savings and loan he owned, Gramm did him some "routine" favors with regulators. Stiles was later convicted on 11 counts of conspiracy and bribery.
As a member of the Senate Finance Committee and the recipient of enormous banking contributions, Gramm did an even bigger favor for the financial industry in 1999 when he sponsored the Financial Services Modernization Act allowing banks, securities firms, and insurance companies to combine. The bill weakened the Community Reinvestment Act, which requires banks to help meet the credit needs of low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. Gramm described community groups that use the CRA as "protection rackets" that extort funds from the poor, powerless banks. The bill is also a disaster for the privacy of bank customers and weakens regulatory supervision. As Gramm proudly declared, "You're not going to find a single bank, insurance company, or securities company that will say they were hurt financially by this bill."
To be fair, Gramm occasionally found it in his heart to assist the poor -- like the time he suggested that mothers on welfare would be better off working for $2.50 an hour. A more typical Gramm vote, though, came on an energy bill that benefited oil and gas companies at the expense of consumers. "There are winners and losers in every economic decision," Gramm said portentously. He was then getting more oil and gas money than any other member of the Senate. So much for Dicky Flatt.
Gramm and Armey both spent years trying to control government spending. George W. Bush has a simpler plan: He just cuts taxes so there's nothing to spend. Armey and Gramm can safely leave the wrecking job to Bush. But we'll sure miss that sweet style.
Image: The Associated Press
