Conservative spotlight: Steve Moore

The Club for Growth

"Seldom has anger toward Congress been more intense than it is today. For 30 years conservatives and libertarians labored mightily to wrestle control of Congress away from a Democratic Party that has been mostly captured by the left at the national level. Most of us believed that electing a Republican Congress would bring about the kinds of major policy reforms-tax cuts, school choice, less wasteful government, and so on-that are so critical to advancing prosperity.

"We now know that was a naive hope." So says the Club for Growth, a new organization dedicated to changing that.

"The lesson we should derive from this disappointing performance is this: Until we as citizens convert one or both of the major political parties over to our pro-growth policy ideas, it is unlikely that we are going to be able to advance our agenda successfully in Congress."

The Club for Growth will hit Republican congressmen where it hurts: in their campaign chests. "We are not a PAC," said Steve Moore, director of fiscal policy studies at the CATO Institute, economic affairs correspondent for HumAN EvENTs, and president of the Club for Growth. "We are a bundling organization like EMILY's List."

About 50,000 EMILY's List members gave a huge amount, $7.5 million, to prochoice Democratic women candidates in the 1998 election cycle. PACs can give candidates only a maximum of $5,000, but a bundling organization avoids that limit by not giving money to candidates directly. Instead, the Club for Growth will inform its members of which candidates it considers worthy, and they in turn will write their own checks to the candidates, with a legal maximum of $1,000 per person to each candidate.

"If we had 10,000 members who give $1,000 each to a candidate," said Moore, "that's $10 million."

Moore said that this arrangement is perfectly legal, and noted that, "If they go after us, they will have to go after EMILY's List." EMILY's List has been around since 1985.

"We started this only six months ago," he said, "so we view the year 2000 as a test case." Moore said that the club will not be a wing of the Republican establishment, though it will support only Republicans.

"We will support primary challenges to incumbents," said Moore in a statement not likely to please Republican leaders. For example, he said, the club will support Scott Garrett's primary challenge to liberal Republican Rep. Marge Roukema (N.J.).

The club plans to support only ten to 20 congressional candidates a cycle for the near future, and restrict all of its other activities to issue advocacy, such as running ads in support of tax cuts. So far, it has 1,000 members and has raised $1 million. Richard Gilder, a Wall Street stockbroker with his firm Gilder, Gragnon, Howe & Co., is chairman of the group, and Thomas (Dusty) Rhodes, president of National Review, serves as co-chairman.

The Club for Growth has a pessimistic view of Congress six years after the GOP took control of it for the first time in decades. "Today," says the club, "there are at most some 50 members of the House and roughly 15 members of the Senate who are truly dedicated to prosperity and limited government."

"We will support only solidly Reaganite candidates on the economic issues," Moore said. "We will not look at social issues. They are not involved. We will be primarily looking at tax cuts, Social Security privatization, and school choice. We're not in any way an adjunct of the Republican National Committee or the congressional campaign committees.

"Frankly, we do want to ruffle some feathers. We want incumbent Republicans to be nervous about not cutting government. Most of the candidates we'll be supporting will not be incumbents, but primary challengers or contenders for open or Democratic seats. We see ourselves as political venture capitalists."

The club's website features not only information on the group but articles in support of limited government policies by Moore and Lawrence Kudlow, chief economist and managing director of Schroder & Co. They push policies such as using the huge upcoming budget surpluses to cut, not expand, government, and for crucial capital gains tax cuts. An article by Moore explains how the 1997 capital gains cut has led not only to more economic growth, but higher tax revenues.

"Every claim the critics made turned out to be wrong. The tax cut did increase asset values. It did contribute to the largest gain in productivity and private-sector capital investment in a decade. It did not lose revenues for the federal Treasury. In fact it has increased tax receipts by almost 40% in just two years--far more than even some of the most ardent supply-siders expected," Moore wrote.

The Club for Growth may be reached at 1776 K Street, N. W., Suite 300, Washington, D.C. 20006 (202955-5500; fax; 202-719-7270, e-mail. shawn@clubforgrowth.org; website: www.clubforgrowth.org).

Copyright Human Events Publishing, Inc. Mar 24, 2000
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