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Clay Risen, in a TNR Cover Story. sees the Deficit as a way for Democrats to retake majority power and the White House.
As per usual with TNR, it's well written and intelligent to a point. As with many of their articles, however, one asks "What planet is this guy on?" The thesis of the article is how bad the deficit is, how polls show deficit reduction to be a good issue, and the moral/values portion of the debate. The last allows the Democrats to take the high moral ground. "I can assure you I'm not going to sit just quietly by as the Washington politicians keep driving up the deficit and spending away our children's future," said Tom Colburn in the election -- and he won by 11 points. Ummm, Clay, he is a Republican. And he ran on a platform of spending cuts, not tax hikes. And this is the trouble with Mr. Risen's piece. It is comprehensive on the seriousness of the issue and long on framing the debate: |
Of course, success in talking about the deficit is all a matter of how you frame it--people know deficits are bad, but they won't vote on them without prompting. That's why the Democrats need not only the right policies and rhetoric, but also party unity and consistency. (Fortunately, two of the Democratic caucus's thorns, Zell Miller and John Breaux, are out of office come January.) It means raising deficit reduction to the level of mantra, refracting other issues-- foreign policy, Social Security reform, education--through its lens. It means denying Republicans the easy excuse that the market will solve everything. It means making Bush explain how he plans to pay for his agenda without encumbering future generations or leading us into a fiscal crisis. It won't be easy, but it's the right thing to do. And, for those thinking about how to retake the White House in four years, it's the smart thing to do, too.Risen says that Democrats must get their own ideas about Social Security -- not just obstruct the president's. But he never once suggests any kind of spending restraint. "The Democrats will tax us back to fiscal sanity!" "No irresponsible tax cuts under a Democratic Congress!" These just don't sound like winners to me. Left unsaid is the real problem for the Ds. Their constituencies, their programs and their beliefs all require a high level of Government spending. They can try pay-go again, and they can try cutting corporate welfare again, but they can not credibly become the party of fiscal responsibility because they cannot embrace lower government spending. I like the drawing on the cover, though. | |