Both political parties are trumpeting their success — their common sense, their centrism, and even to a certain extent their bipartisanship — in averting a government shut down.<\/p>\n
Superficially, both sides gave a little to get the deal done.<\/p>\n
Republicans accepted fewer cuts in Federal spending (the final number hovers around $40 billion) and gave up their ideological attack on Planned Parenthood, public broadcasting and the EPA.<\/p>\n
Democrats?\u00a0 Well, Democrats accepted $40 billion worth of cuts to domestic and foreign spending.\u00a0 Sounds like a reasonable compromise, right?<\/p>\n
Maybe.\u00a0 But it was also a major defeat for Democrats.\u00a0 Here’s why.<\/p>\n
In commenting on the deal late Friday night, President Barack Obama essentially conceded, accepting the GOP’s overarching philosophy about government.<\/p>\n
Rather than simply saying, Look, I had to give up stuff I hated to give up in order to get a deal done<\/em>, Mr. Obama actually boasted about the cuts, describing them as “the largest annual spending cut in our history.”<\/p>\n He went on to make an argument about the role and function of government that is, essentially, Republican:<\/p>\n “Some of the cuts we agreed to will be painful.\u00a0 Programs people rely on will be cut back.\u00a0 Needed infrastructure projects will be delayed.\u00a0 I would not have made these cuts in better circumstances.\u00a0 But beginning to live within our means is the only way to protect those investments that will help America to compete for new jobs.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Before wrapping up, Mr. Obama went on to boast yet again about having implemented tax cuts last year.<\/p>\n In describing the dangers of a government shut down, the President highlighted only one specific story.\u00a0 He said he had received a letter from a mom whose child’s field trip to Washington DC might be canceled.<\/p>\n Really?<\/p>\n If that’s the worst we can expect if our Federal government ceases to operate, then perhaps libertarians are correct.\u00a0 Maybe America would be better off with a radically smaller government.<\/p>\n And if this deal represented Americans “living within our means,” then why were Democrats fighting against cuts?\u00a0 We don’t know.<\/p>\n That’s because nowhere in his statement was any argument, call to arms or philosophical explanation about the broad importance of the Federal government.<\/p>\n Missing was any mention of the fact that a mountainous chunk of our deficit is caused by the fact that we have the lowest levels of taxation at any time since World War 2 — well below historic norms.<\/p>\n Absent was any mention of the Bush era tax cuts, which primarily benefit the very wealthy, which Mr. Obama once promised to eliminate.<\/p>\n The president also failed to mention the fact that many American corporations pay no taxes whatsoever.<\/p>\n I suspect that Mr. Obama’s tone wasn’t just a product of his party’s drubbing in the 2010 midterms.<\/p>\n His comments reflect an ideological problem which has plagued Democrats since 1996, when then President Bill Clinton declared that the “era of big government is over.”<\/p>\n Of course, that was blarney.\u00a0 Government has remained essentially the same size as a percentage of GDP over the last forty years, under Republican and Democratic leadership.<\/p>\n But the modern Democratic Party doesn’t know what to do about this issue.<\/p>\n It was built specifically around a vision of the Federal government as a powerful force for good, from Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal to Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society to Mr. Obama’s own Federal stimulus plan.<\/p>\n But the idea of continuing to embrace government, arguing deliberately for its strengths and virtues, gives Democrats the willies.<\/p>\n Which leaves them with no clear identity, or political philosophy, certainly none that they are conveying to the public and to voters.<\/p>\n