President Clinton has quietly reneged on his promise to cut $106 billion from his budget, despite annual deficits that are now more than $100 billion higher than Ronald Reagan's.
With red ink soaring, his economic and budget aides say it is more important to spend more money on new programs.Clinton promised the spending cuts last summer to overcome opposition to his 30 percent hike in income tax rates on small business and "the rich." Bolstered by this promise, the tax increase squeaked by with two votes in the House and Vice President Al Gore's tie-breaking vote in the Senate.
But Clinton's promise to cut spending was just another deceptive act and one more nail in the coffin of people's trust in government.
Millions of Americans already distrust government. When Martin Gross published his expose of government waste in June 1992, "The Government Racket" soared to best-seller status. Now he's back with "A Call for Revolution."
Gross says that a "velvet revolution" is under way. Led by "soldiers of democracy" employing initiatives and referendums, direct citizen action is succeeding in limiting taxes and terms in office.
Signs of it are everywhere. Oregon's liberal voters have again rejected a sales tax - this time by a vote of four to one.
Martin Gross' velvet revolution is being led by optimistic people determined to put government back to work in the public's interest. If the velvet revolution fails, the success of another book indicates that a surprising number of Americans wouldn't shy away from violence.
"Let Us Prey" is a novel about a plot to exterminate the Internal Revenue Service that succeeds. At the exact same minute on the same day all seven regional offices of the IRS are blown to bits. There are no survivors.
The fact that Americans enjoy a heavy entertainment diet of sex and violence doesn't mean that they choose to live this type of life. Similarly, people can enjoy a good thriller with IRS as victim without contemplating actually taking any such direct action. Still, the cult following that this book has developed suggests that there is more anger than disillusionment in the public's declining expectation (from 76 percent in the 1960s to 20 percent today) that the federal government will do the right thing.
"Let Us Prey" was self-published by its author, Bill Branon, a Harvard-educated Navy veteran, in 1992. It had phenomenal success, selling 13,000 copies and becoming a New York Times notable book of 1992. That got the attention of the big publishers, and Harper Collins has just brought out a 100,000-copy first printing.
The more successful a person is in life, the worse is his experience with the IRS. The complexity and number of the tax forms mount, and the size of the fortune rises that the taxpayer must turn over in order to stay out of prison.
Moreover, not qualifying for tuition subsidies, food stamps, aid to families with dependent children and public housing, the taxpayer receives no public services in return.
But an error in a tax return or a mistake by an accountant brings enormous penalties and possible prosecution.
Government indifference, arrogance and contempt that people experience today is the raw nerve that Branon's book has reached. The success of his novel is a warning that government is indeed out of touch with the people.