The Raging Democrats

By: E.J. Dionne Jr.

There was a large underground explosion in American politics last week. Its effects will not be felt immediately or seen in the opinion polls right away, but that does not minimize its importance.

The big bang was a surge of rage and a rising sense of betrayal among Democrats. It was detonated by President Bush's budget and the administration's open strategy of using the President's war popularity to push a starkly conservative agenda on domestic issues.

Democrats see their own support for Bush's approach to terrorism being repaid by a brazen effort to strip the Treasury of resources for a generation and to create a permanent tilt in American politics toward the right.

The public response of Democrats was strong enough. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad of North Dakota compared Bush's fiscal plan to Enron's "deceptive financial practices". Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said the budget "digs a deep, long-term fiscal hole".

Such criticisms only began to capture the fury beneath the surface. When Democrats went off the record last week, they expressed frustrated amazement. Words like "outrageous" and "irresponsible" were common. What they found remarkable was that Bush could argue simultaneously that the war on terror had changed everything and that it required no changes in his key domestic priorities crafted during times of peace and prosperity.

Bush's budget includes large, long-term increases in military spending combined with proposals to increase the cost of his tax cut by making it permanent. While most presidents who declare war ask taxpayers to bear its costs through tax increases, Bush proposed more tax cuts, primarily for the wealthy. A decade from now, the Treasury will be so strapped when the baby boomers start to retire that a Social Security crisis is inevitable. No wonder this budget skipped the customary long-term projections.

For the immediate future, much of the Democrats' anger will be directed toward Bush's budget director, Mitch Daniels. Daniels has been making arguments for Bush's budget that could hardly be more incendiary from the Democrats' point of view. In a Washington Post op-ed article (Feb. 3, 2002) advocating domestic cutbacks, Daniels asserted that Franklin Roosevelt cut domestic spending during World War II and eliminated some of his own New Deal agencies, including the Civilian Conservation Corps, the National Youth Administration and the Work Projects Administration.

But the moral of this story is exactly the opposite of the one Daniels drew - that unlike Bush, Roosevelt gave up some of his own priorities, bowing to the wishes of Republicans in Congress in an effort to unite the nation in wartime. As Roosevelt put it, "Dr. New Deal" gave way to "Dr. Win-the-War". The equivalent now would be for Bush to give up some of his tax cut. Instead, Bush is asking bipartisan support for the war even as he follows a partisan course at home.

Except for a hardy band of Republican conservatives who continue to hate deficit spending, most of Bush's political allies are gleeful at the mess his budget and his popularity create for Democrats. Most Democrats are reluctant to challenge the defense increase. Many are unwilling to challenge the tax cuts in an election year, especially since their full fiscal impact is years away.

And Bush has concentrated his proposed cutbacks on programs he knows many Democrats and Republicans will want to keep. If the deficit goes up further, Bush will be able to blame Congress. Given the President's standing in the polls, won't the public believe him instead of, say, Daschle or Conrad?

Bush's budget strategy may thus make short-term political sense. But it carries high risks.

It is certain to aggravate one of the great misunderstandings in Washington. Many Republicans think Democrats support Bush on the war for political reasons, since doing anything else would be political suicide. But Democrats see their support for Bush not as cynical but as both sincere and potentially costly for their own party, given that their own positive comments about the President help to keep his popularity high. When one party views the other party's patriotism as mere cynicism, it's harder to sustain the national resolve and solidarity that a serious war on terrorism will require.

And it's worth remembering that the great Republican victory in the 1994 congressional elections came in part because Republicans in Congress - from the most progressive to the most conservative - tired of what they saw as the brazen, highhanded uses of power by the Democrats. Republicans were deeply and genuinely angry, and they transformed their anger into unity and triumph.

The President's domestic policies are now brewing exactly that kind of anger among Democrats.