Republican Contract with America

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

In the opening paragraphs, the contract states that its purpose is to “restore the bonds of trust between the people and their elected representatives.” Republican lawmakers and candidates pledge to “transform the way Congress works” by making government smaller, less intrusive, and more transparent and by making Congress more accountable to the people.

The contract then lists eight major reforms Republicans propose to implement. The purpose of all of these reforms was to make government more open and responsive to the needs of the citizenry. Among other items, the document calls for an audit of Congress to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse; the opening of committee meetings to the public; the requirement for a three-fifths majority vote to pass a tax increase; and implementation of zero baseline budgeting (that is, budgeting that requires that all expenses be justified, not just increases in the budget from the previous year).

The contract then pledges to enact ten specific pieces of legislation within the first hundred days of the 104th Congress. The list includes proposed bills to impose spending constraints on Congress, to reduce crime, to foster personal responsibility and cut welfare programs, to strengthen the role of the family in society, to provide support for families and middle-class tax relief, to strengthen the nation's military posture and urge admission of former Communist Eastern bloc nations into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, to reduce taxes for Social Security recipients, to provide incentives to business that will create jobs and promote entrepreneurial activity, to reform the tort system in the courts, and to impose term limits on legislators.

Some of these proposed bills were eventually passed, either in the form that Congress proposed or in altered form. Perhaps the most significant was welfare reform, enacted through the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. One significant failure was the effort to impose term limits on legislators. Such a step would require an amendment to the Constitution, and the proposed bill that would have launched the amendment process was rejected in the House of Representatives.