Leaders of democracies, like bear wranglers at the circus, must be
experts at reading moods. Most of the time, the leaders of our two major
parties seem to have much the same sense of the voters’ basic concerns.
But for the past two years, the parties have been operating under very
different understandings of the public temper.
Democrats believed that the economic crisis made the electorate yearn
for security, thereby creating an openness to large public programs.
They enacted a gargantuan stimulus bill, expensive health care reform
and other expansions of government. Republicans believed that the crisis
alarmed voters about runaway government and debt, thus leaving them open
to paring back the state. They ran on stopping and reversing the
spending binge.
The 2010 elections suggested the Republicans were closer to the mark.
But the Democrats continue to bet that voters were only venting and will
reject actual cuts to popular programs. And so in the great budget
battle raging in Washington, we still see two very different assessments
of the public on display.
On its face, the debate is about how to address the government’s
enormous deficits and debt while growing the economy. The problem’s
scale is daunting. At more than $10 trillion, our debt has doubled in
the past five years and will double again by decade’s end. By the early
2030s, it will be roughly twice the size of our entire economy and still growing out of control, gravely threatening future
growth and prosperity.
The biggest reason for this long-term debt explosion is our system of
entitlements. Republicans and Democrats in Washington both understand
that reforming those entitlements is essential to
making a real dent in the debt. But both also know that entitlement
reform has always been deeply unpopular with voters.
That is where the parties’ readings of the public mood become crucial.
Because they believe that voters are just as opposed to entitlement
reform as ever, President Obama and the Democrats have basically
declined to offer any solutions to the nation’s fiscal crisis. In his
State of the Union address, the President said it was important to
confront the problem of entitlement spending but did not propose to
actually do so. The 2012 budget he released in February offered no
reforms either and would accelerate the growth of debt.
Republicans, on the other hand, believe this is a fundamentally new
moment in our politics and that political calculations need not lead to
irresponsible policy. They have therefore committed to offering
entitlement reforms in their 2012 budget, due out in early April. It
seems that although they will be vague about Social Security, they will
propose concrete reforms to Medicare. They are likely to leave untouched
the benefits of Americans now over age 55. But for those who are
younger, Medicare would be transformed into a system of vouchers that
recipients would use to buy approved insurance of their choice.
