The fiscally responsible candidate
YOU WOULD think that the party that turned surpluses into deficits, ran up record debt, and piled a "debt tax" onto the backs of millions of Americans would have trouble laying claim to the mantle of fiscal responsibility.
But John McCain's Republican ticket will almost inevitably take a crack at it, and Democrats need to be ready.
The current Republican administration has presided over the explosion of the federal deficit, turning a 10-year projected surplus of $5 trillion into a $2.8 trillion deficit. Republicans in Congress quintupled the number of earmarks in the federal budget - until Democrats began scaling them back after taking control of Congress last year.
And under George W. Bush's leadership, the so-called "debt tax" - the chunk of every dollar of revenue that we send to the Chinese, the Saudis, and other governments from whom Washington has borrowed - has grown to $3,500 per family of four.
To Washington insiders, Republican commitment to fiscal discipline has been broken a thousand times. They laugh when they hear Republicans go to the House floor to excoriate Democrats as old tax-and-spend liberals. And they roll their eyes as so-called Republican budget hawks simultaneously call for an extension of the Bush tax cuts, a major factor contributing to endless budget deficits.
But in the rest of the country - where families have enough trouble making ends meet before worrying about the intricacies of the budget process in Washington - the details are lost in the background noise.
According to a recent poll, only 2 in 5 think Democrats would do a better job handling the budget deficit. They see a bloated government that's all talk and no action. They see partisan bickering that seems to substitute for hard compromise. And they see an economy that's begun to falter on the precipice of recession.
Democrats still (and unfairly) carry the old albatross of big-government bureaucracy. For all the polling that shows Americans are sick of Republican incompetence, the Democratic nominee won't have the luxury of campaigning against Bush in 2008. He or she will face McCain. And unfortunately for progressives, McCain has spent years building up credibility with fiscal hawks by voting against - and publicly criticizing - the GOP's fiscal recklessness.
McCain voted against the Bush tax cuts, claiming they unfairly benefited the rich. He has been a real warrior in the campaign against earmarks.
On the other hand, McCain has recently given the Democratic nominee a chance to capture the mantle of fiscal conservatism. In an effort to gain favor with the far right, McCain has reversed his position on extending the Bush tax cuts, his campaign has offered no specifics on how to cut spending except for criticizing earmarks, and his support for an indefinite continuation of the war in Iraq means new deficits as far as the eye can see.
If the American people are going to be convinced that the Democratic nominee will be the more responsible fiscal steward, he or she will need to offer real details not only on how to increase revenue, but how to restrain spending. Excessive subsidies for mega-agribusinesses, a burgeoning federal travel budget, subsidies to the healthcare industry from the 2003 Medicare drug bill, and breaks for the oil and gas industry are all spending-cut ideas that would help the Democratic candidate earn credibility on fiscal policy.
Nearly 30 years after the so-called "Reagan Revolution" - and despite all evidence to the contrary - many American still believe that Republicans are the grown-ups when it comes to handling the nation's checkbook. This is why McCain can call for extending the fiscally reckless Bush tax cuts on the one hand while claiming to be the champion of balancing the budget on the other.
So if a Democrat is going to win the argument over fiscal responsibility, the nominee will have to force McCain to choose between two crucial constituencies: a Republican base obsessed with tax cuts, and a critical mass of swing voters demanding that Washington live within its means.
Paul Weinstein Jr. is a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute. Marc Dunkelman is director of the Democratic Leadership Council's Ideas Primary.
