Lawrence J.

Haas

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October 13, 2008

Presuming They Win, Democrats Must Not Overreach

Wall Street’s meltdown, which has spurred widespread predictions of a deep and painful recession, has Democrats dreaming not just of a Barack Obama presidency but of enough House and Senate pick-ups in November to largely curtail the Republicans’ power to block Democratic initiatives.

That, in turn, has the Democrats’ liberal wing, which chafed under Bill Clinton’s centrist rule and seethed during the conservative George W. Bush years, dreaming of a hugely expansive domestic program, even of a second FDR-style New Deal that would significantly increase the size of government.

Presumably, Democrats would offer sweeping proposals to provide health care coverage to all Americans, address climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, invest heavily in alternative fuels to end our oil dependency and launch a new public works program to rebuild our roads and bridges.

If, however, Democrats want to retain power for awhile, they should eschew such sweeping proposals, with their inevitable mix of dramatic new spending and new taxes that the public would likely reject. Instead, they should propose incremental approaches to address such problems, enabling them to make step-by-step progress towards their goals while retaining public support.

Simply put, it’s not the 1930s all over again. We are a different people, facing different challenges and having different expectations of what our government can accomplish for us.

While our forefathers were revolutionaries, we are now raging incrementalists. Modern-day political leaders who have ruled with that reality in mind have succeeded. Those who have not have failed.

Economically, yes, times are tough – and scary. But let’s keep things in perspective. When FDR proposed “bold, persistent experimentation” as he ran for president in 1932, unemployment was nearing 25 percent. Today, it’s just over 6 percent – serious, but hardly catastrophic. We have advanced far beyond the America of the 1930s, a third of which was, in Roosevelt’s words, “ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.”

Nor, unlike the 1930s, does the federal government have much room to expand. Even after Herbert Hoover’s often overlooked efforts from 1929 to 1933 to attack the Great Depression, government grew to just 7 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). And even with FDR’s New Deal in place, government did not top 11 percent until America entered World War II.

Today, federal spending equals about 21 percent of GDP and Americans show no great inclination to let it grow much more. Federal taxes equal about 18 percent of GDP and, as they approached 20 percent on occasion in the recent past, Americans have tended to launch tax revolts to force politicians to cut them back. Tax revolts also occur in states and localities when tax burdens rise.

After decades of conservative attacks on government as wasteful and ineffective, and after government’s admitted failure to reach some of its outsized goals (such as ending poverty), Americans have grown skeptical of sweeping public solutions to problems. Political leaders who have not recognized that basic reality have suffered the consequences.

After President Clinton proposed in 1993 to overhaul the health care system, guaranteeing universal coverage but creating huge new regulatory bureaucracies, the public turned against his plan, lawmakers of both parties soon followed and it collapsed a year later on Capitol Hill.  Clinton paid the price in the 1994 mid-term elections as Republicans gained enough seats to win simultaneous control of the House and Senate for the first time in 40 years.

That new Republican majority proceeded to make the same kind of mistake in 1995. In a landmark budget battle with Clinton, they forced a government shutdown that kept parks, museums and other popular services closed. Once more, the public turned away, preferring Clinton’s new-found centrism to GOP radicalism.

That’s not to say that change is impossible or progress is unattainable. Quite the contrary, modern-day government in Washington has made real progress when it has proceeded incrementally.

Clinton learned that lesson better than anyone. After the health care debacle, he opted for bite-sized progress. He worked with Congress to provide new health care coverage to millions of low-income children, expand federal aid to education, invest more in research, end “welfare as we know it,” overhaul immigration and make progress on a host of other fronts.

A new all-Democratic government can succeed. But its leaders must keep not just public need in mind, but public skepticism as well. They can make headway on their goals, but they’re likelier to do so through incremental steps rather than monumental proposals that will prove too large for the public to accept.

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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