The President's Political Potshot

Like it or not, it seems we have entered the 2002 election season. Democratic Senate leader Tom Daschle fired first on Friday; President Bush came roaring back over the weekend. The subjects were taxes, budgets, and the economy; all fair game, you might say - this is what politicians are supposed to argue about. But Mr. Bush came close to suggesting that the partisan rhetoric he was employing to such fine effect wasn't legitimate when used by the other side. "It's time to take the spirit of unity that has been prevalent in fighting the war and bring it to Washington, D.C.", the President said. His economic stimulus plan metamorphosed over the holiday into an "economic security plan". The implication is that opposition to his tax cuts would carry a whiff of failed patriotism.

This tactic strikes us as ill-advised. The unified support from Democrats and Republicans for the war effort since Sept. 11 is admirable, but there's no reason it should extend to unrelated matters. Stretching it too far in fact can only weaken it where it counts. Mr. Bush should let his arguments stand or fall on their merits.

Unfortunately, on the merits many of his arguments don't hold up. He mocked Democrats on Saturday for allegedly arguing that Mr. Bush's expensive, long-term tax cuts caused the recession. But that isn't the argument. The real allegation, which Mr. Bush did not parry because he cannot, is that the tax cuts have pushed the federal budget from surplus back into deficit, thereby squeezing the government's ability to beef up military spending and homeland defense while taking care of the nation's other needs - notably, the long-term shortfalls in Social Security and Medicare and the immediate gaps in health insurance for more than 40 million Americans. Many of the Bush tax cuts have yet to take effect and could be postponed or canceled, yet Mr. Bush, in an interesting twist of language, now insists that any such postponement would amount to a tax increase [raise].

Many Democrats in Congress, having lacked the courage or wisdom to oppose the bulk of the cuts last spring, aren't particularly well positioned to decry them now. But it was the administration that assured the nation that it could afford the tax cuts, most of the benefit of which will go to the wealthiest Americans, and still have plenty left over for defense, Social Security reform, and other needs. That has turned out not to be so. "Not over my dead body" is memorable and dramatic. It won't change the math.