The Budget Surrender.

• Author: Conniff, Ruth
• Position: George W. Bush's fiscal policy

It might surprise progressives, given how far right the political debate has moved in recent years, to hear that old-fashioned tax-and-spend liberalism is as popular as ever in Washington. The problem isn't that Democratic politicians, Congressional staffers, and liberal think-tankers actually believe the era of big government is over, or that what the economy needs is a tax cut. The problem is that they won't say what they really think on the record.

I was at an off-the-record policy lunch at the Brookings Institution to discuss the Bush budget recently and was sitting next to NPR's Daniel Schorr when he became exasperated with the cautious tone of the conversation. Why, he asked, do the Democrats seem so willing to go along with the Reagan-era, "starve the beast" theory that says we must cut taxes so we can shrink government? These days, there seems to be a bipartisan consensus: Tax cuts are good, and government spending is bad. No one seems willing to point out, Schorr noted, that "government spending" includes many of the things that make life livable for the poor and working class--good schools, health care, pensions.

There was a round of agreement on this point from the politicos and policy experts present. Everyone laments the demise of the old Democratic message that we can do better, that government spending contributes to a society where children get health care, the elderly don't live in poverty, and all of us enjoy better schools, less crime, a cleaner environment--the conditions a free market doesn't manufacture. These are the services government Should provide.

The logic is unassailable, the assembled Democrats agreed, that taking care of society's neediest should come before tax cuts for the very rich.

So why haven't they beaten the drum loudly in the Bush budget debate? Why are they willing to settle for a tax cut of $1.3 trillion instead of $1.6 trillion?

The answer is that they lack the courage of their convictions. There is a strange double-consciousness at work within the party. Maybe it comes from eight years of endlessly deferred gratification during the Clinton Presidency. If only we talk about paying down the debt, shoring up Social Security, and ending welfare now, we can stave off big tax cuts and have money left in the government coffers to take care of human needs later, the argument went. Now Clinton is gone, and all that austerity talk is on the verge of becoming a permanent reality. The huge surpluses of...