Pubdate: Mon, 29 Jan 2001
Source: Nation, The (US)
Copyright: 2001, The Nation Company
Contact:  33 Irving Place, 8th Floor,  New York, NY 10003
Website: http://www.thenation.com/
Authors: David Burnham and Susan Long
Note: David Burnham and Susan Long are co-directors of the Transactional 
Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a nonpartisan research organization 
associated with Syracuse University that provides comprehensive information 
about the federal government through aggressive application of the Freedom 
of Information Act (http://trac.syr.edu). Research support provided by the 
Elections 2000 Fund of the Nation Institute.

THE CLINTON ERA BY THE NUMBERS

His Legacy: More Law Enforcement, Less Money For A Range Of Other Services

Far more federal investigators. Many more prosecutions of illegal
immigrants. The continuing dominant role of the war on drugs. A
decreasing emphasis on white-collar crime. More and more time required
for the completion of criminal prosecutions. The unchanging reluctance
of federal prosecutors to deal with brutal police officers. Fewer
audits for corporate America.

Those are some of the important ingredients of the Clinton legacy.
While President Clinton's influence was felt throughout the federal
government, it is in the area of law enforcement that some of his
Administration's most striking aspects can be documented. Considered
together, they point to an Administration that, while talking about
liberal values, was extremely successful in capturing the political
support of a law-and-order constituency that for many years had mostly
backed the GOP.

Often, the role of the White House was relatively minor. But since
President Clinton has casually claimed credit for many good things
that happened, whatever the size of his contribution, it seems only
fair to judge his performance by that same standard. And based on such
a review, it is clear that George W. Bush should have little trouble
carrying on much of the Clinton tradition.

Headcount and Spending

Perhaps the most startling development of the Clinton years was the
change in the basic makeup of the federal government. During the
recent election campaign, one of Bush's favorite lines concerned Vice
President Al Gore's alleged lust for big government. But as Gore noted
in very general terms, the federal government shrank during the
Clinton years. With the end of the cold war, the number of uniformed
personnel in the military went down. Significantly, however, the 1999
federal payroll listed almost 25 percent fewer civilian employees--in
relation to population--than it did in 1992. Meanwhile, the number of
criminal investigators was increasing. In 1992 there was one criminal
investigator for every thirty federal employees. In 1999 there was one
criminal investigator for every twenty employees. With no room for
discussion, Clinton is leaving us with a government that has become
more concerned with enforcing the law and investigating the people,
and less able to provide the public with a range of other services.

Given the overall decline in government employees, it is not
surprising that direct federal expenditures did not increase during
these years. In constant dollars, payments amounted to $ 5,694 for
each American in 1992, $ 5,647 in 1999.

An agency-by-agency breakdown of the changes in federal spending,
however, provides additional insight about the government's increasing
enforcement and investigative roles. We have already mentioned the
decline in military personnel. Measured in constant dollars this drop
was substantial: from $ 1,034 per person in 1993 to $ 871 in 1999.
But, accelerated in part by Vice President Gore's "reinventing
government" effort, spending by many agencies not under the Defense
Department umbrella, including the departments of Agriculture,
Treasury and Housing and Urban Development, also declined. The EPA was
down 15 percent, other regulatory agencies dropped by 29 percent, the
Energy Department was off by 28 percent and NASA dropped by 21 percent.

But hold on. A few agencies bucked the downward trend. Leading this
much smaller pack was the Justice Department, where constant per
capita spending jumped by 72 percent.

Why is this? Well, with Clinton and the Republicans competing to
outspend each other in funding the always popular "war on crime," the
startling success of Justice in the budget battles was predictable.
Although the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and the
Bureau of Prisons were among the biggest winners within the
department, it is also worth noting that the Clinton Administration's
FBI is larger today--both in raw numbers and in relation to
population--than at any time in history, including World War II, the
cold war and the period of civil disturbances related to the Vietnam
War and after the assassination of Martin Luther King. Individuals
listed with the occupational specialty of "intelligence officer"
nearly quintupled, jumping from 224 to 1,025.

Criminal Enforcement

More federal enforcers and more enforcement dollars might be assumed
to translate automatically into more federal prosecutions. But over
the years, while the number of prosecutions has edged higher and
higher, the annual number of such actions has varied: It was
relatively high in 1993, slumped significantly in 1994 and then began
going up again. According to Justice Department data, upon which most
of this analysis rests, the prosecution count jumped sharply in 1998,
to 82,071. (Because the department has withheld 1999 data from us,
enforcement information about the last full year of the Clinton
Administration is not now available. But court data suggest that in
1999 federal prosecutions reached an all-time high.)

Immigration.

Immigration matters made up a major part of
the recent spurt in indictments. In fact, such actions more than
doubled during the Clinton years, jumping from 7,335 in 1993 to 14,616
in 1998. (Once again, court data indicate that immigration
prosecutions continued their dramatic rise in 1999.) The recent jump
in immigration prosecutions is the major reason that the overall
number of federal court cases has increased at a faster rate than at
any time since the Nixon Administration launched the war on drugs and
ordered federal prosecutors to go after Vietnam War draft dodgers. The
surge in immigration prosecutions followed an agreement by the
Administration and Congress to step up border control efforts through
the simple expedient of hiring many more INS agents.

Drugs.

For many years the effort to combat the sale and use
of illegal drugs has dominated the federal enforcement agenda. From
1993 to 1998, for example, drug cases consistently made up more than
one-third of all federal prosecutions. By comparison, fewer than one
out of ten prosecutions during the same period were classified by the
Justice Department as involving official corruption, environmental and
regulatory matters. The sharpest increases in the annual number of
federal drug prosecutions came during the Reagan and Bush years. By
contrast, in the early Clinton years drug prosecutions actually
declined slightly and then began inching higher, reaching 30,014 in
1998. This total is more than three times the 8,938 such actions in
1981. (The overwhelming impact of the drug war on the federal system
is hard to exaggerate. In recent years, for example, drugs have been
the criminal offense involved for 42-45 percent of all people
sentenced to prison.)

Guns.

By contrast, there was one specialized area that went
through an extraordinarily steep decline during the same period: the
enforcement of the nation's gun laws by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco
and Firearms. Referrals by ATF for federal prosecution declined by 44
percent from 1992 to 1998. (In fairness, the court data suggest that
an increase in weapons enforcement actions that began in 1998
continued in 1999.)

A key factor behind the surprising drop in ATF referrals during most
of the Clinton years was a 14 percent cut in ATF criminal
investigators, mandated by Congress but accepted by the
Administration's strategists. Many experienced enforcement officials
believe that a second important explanation for the collapse of the
ATF was its 1993 raid on the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas. Their
argument: The widespread public criticism of this flawed action
profoundly undermined the agency's morale and its will to enforce the
law. But no one should forget that the ATF raid itself and the FBI's
subsequent horrific effort to end the hostage situation were also
dismal parts of the Clinton legacy.

The sharp decline in ATF referrals in the 1992-98 period became a
significant political issue in the presidential campaign when the
Republicans and the National Rifle Association teamed up to attack the
Administration's enforcement priorities. With some legitimacy they
joined in asking why Clinton used a series of shooting incidents
during the period to make high-publicity requests that Congress pass
new gun-control laws when his Administration was not fully enforcing
the ones already on the books. Because Congress was ultimately
responsible for cutting the ATF budget, the Republican criticism also
contained a good dash of hypocrisy.

[sections] Police Brutality. Sometimes the priorities that go
unchanged, the dogs that don't bark, are as revealing as those that
do. One example: When local jurisdictions fail to punish brutal police
officers and prison guards, the federal government has the option of
bringing criminal charges against the offenders, usually under one of
two laws. But for many years federal prosecutors have been reluctant
to pursue this approach. During the past twelve years, federal
prosecutors appointed by both former President Bush and President
Clinton have obtained indictments in only 3 percent of all such
matters referred to them by the FBI. (By comparison, federal
prosecutors have consistently prosecuted a much larger proportion of
the matters presented to them concerning another kind of government
abuse--official corruption.) In 1998, for example, 48 percent of these
other matters resulted in an indictment. Thus the Clinton legacy in
this sensitive area simply continued the federal practice of the past
quarter-century under both Democratic and Republican Presidents.

The Wheels of Justice

In addition to the specifics of what laws were or were not enforced, the
data we have obtained and analyzed also highlight broader problems in the
federal justice system. One concerns the startling long-term increase in the
time required to complete a case in federal court. At the beginning of the
Reagan Administration the median time was ninety-nine days. At the end it was
130. At the beginning of the Bush years the median was 141 days; by the end it
was 160. The pattern continued during the Clinton Administration: 168 days in
1993, 205 in 1998. Although the legislature writing the laws and the judges
administering the courts bear some responsibility for this explosive 
change, the
vast discretionary powers of the prosecutors appointed by Reagan, Bush and
Clinton make them the first among equals.

The doubling of federal prosecution time raises troubling management
and budget questions for the Justice Department and the courts. But
for those who believe in the American ideas of fairness, and for the
hundreds of thousands of defendants being processed through the
federal assembly line, there is a second obvious question: Can anyone
doubt that justice delayed is justice denied?

Administrative Enforcement

The initiation of criminal charges is not the only way the government
works to persuade the American people to do the right thing. A second
option is for the government to impose administrative sanctions
outside the courts. One of the most conspicuous users of this second
kind of federal authority is the Internal Revenue Service. Fully
acknowledging that IRS policies are heavily influenced by the
decisions of Congress, the tax enforcement patterns of the past few
years remain a major part of the Clinton legacy, especially given the
vast reach of this agency.

One striking reality here is the sharp decline in all kinds of tax
enforcement. During the Clinton years, the overall audit rate for
individuals has dropped by half, from 0.66 percent to 0.31 percent.
During the same period, corporate audits went through a similar
decline--2.9 percent in 1992, 1.51 percent in 1999. The decline in the
audit rate for the largest corporations--those with assets of more
than $ 250 million--is also noteworthy. In 1992 more than half of
these giants were audited. In 1999 the rate had dropped to only one in
three.

As just noted, the Clinton Administration is not solely responsible
for the broad degradation of the IRS's enforcement presence. During
the past few years conservative forces in Congress have mounted an
intense rhetorical attack on the agency, which resulted in budget cuts
requiring a reduction in the number of expert revenue agents who have
the skills to audit upper-income and corporate tax returns. The tax
man has in fact been taking it on the chin for a long time. After a
substantial buildup of the IRS during the Reagan years, full-time
staff is now 31 percent smaller than it was in 1988, when the cutbacks
began.

This decline, and other factors that hit the agency in the early
1980s, have resulted in a dramatic shift in how the American people
experience the IRS. In fact, the proportion of taxpayers now required
to go through the traditional "face to face" IRS audit is five times
lower than it was in 1981.

Perhaps the most surprising Clinton-era development occurred last year
when--reversing past practice--low-income taxpayers suddenly stood a
greater chance of being audited than high-income taxpayers. Because
wealthy taxpayers obviously have more to hide from the government and
better opportunities for hiding it, the IRS has historically focused
its audits on the rich. In 1999, however, the audit rate for those
making $ 100,000 or more was only 1.15 percent. At the other end of
the scale, the rate on simple returns reporting $ 25,000 or less was
1.36 percent.

The data suggest that the federal government President Clinton leaves
behind has become less able to serve the traditional needs of the
American people but better equipped to investigate and prosecute them.
Clinton gave moving speeches about his concern for African-Americans.
But when it came to dealing with brutal police officers--a matter of
special concern to black Americans--his government followed the
minimalist approach of the Reagan and Bush administrations. After
almost every major shooting incident of the past few years, Bill
Clinton called for new gun-control programs. But when it came to
enforcement, his government seemed to lose its way.

Assuming President-elect Bush succeeds in getting John Ashcroft as his
Attorney General, the question is just how much of the current policy
this outspoken conservative will actually want to change.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake