Democrats Must Learn To Say ‘Less’

It may take historical hindsight to see what the political pundits missed in President Clinton’s State of the Union address: The speech documented what is potentially a historic shift in Democratic politics.

The speech pointed the country - and the Democratic Party - toward a new political era. Only a few months ago, the Democratic Party seemed destined for permanent minority status as a coalition of special pleaders for government benefits. In his speech, Clinton showed Democrats the way to forge a new majority.

With the simple statement that “the era of big government is over,” the president boldly declared an end to the raison d’etre that has increasingly defined his party. Liberal Democrats in the House and Senate had no choice but to join in the applause.

Just as unequivocally, and just as importantly, the president rejected the conservative alternative. “We cannot go back to the time when our citizens were left to fend for themselves,” he said.

With those words, Clinton embraced the argument New Democrats have been making for years: that the New Deal’s approach to both politics and policy no longer works. To tackle the challenges our country faces, we must reach beyond the traditional liberal strategy of creating new government programs for every problem or the dominant conservative alternative of tearing down government and abandoning public responsibilities.

The New Democrat view is that meeting public responsibilities is just as critical in the information age as it was in the industrial age. The difference is the government must be decentralized and its role redefined to equip citizens to solve problems. The president put it this way: “Our goal must be to enable all our people to make the most of their lives with stronger families, more educational opportunity, economic security, safer streets, a cleaner environment and a safer world.”

Of course, in politics, talk is cheap; actions matter. There are two reasons this speech may mark a genuine turning point.

First, Clinton’s declaration is unequivocal. It is one thing to talk about a new understanding between the people and their government, as the president did in his 1995 State of the Union address. It is quite another to declare the end of the dominant strand of your party’s politics.

Second, Clinton’s declaration was backed by a commitment to balance the budget in seven years. There’s no wiggle room - and no resources for big-government programs. The president’s straightforward offer to the Republicans - to enact the budget cuts common to both plans - isn’t what congressional liberals would have ordered.

It now looks as if congressional Republicans will accept Clinton’s offer. But even if they reject it, the president himself has no choice but to propose a seven-year balanced budget to Congress.

In addition to embracing the goal of a balanced budget, Clinton’s message challenged liberal dogma at every turn, from his declaration that twoparent families are best to his directing the FBI to combat juvenile gang violence and to prosecute “as adults teenagers who maim and kill like adults.”

Now the president’s challenge is to wean his party from its addiction to big government. That would be a spectacular achievement that only Clinton has the capacity to do. This has been the promise of his presidency since day one.

The test will come soon enough. He must press for closure on agreements to balance the budget in seven years and to end welfare as we know it. He must resist the temptation to gain short-term political advantage by pretending that reform is unnecessary for programs like Social Security and Medicare. He must level with the American people about the difficult changes that are needed. And he must avoid making promises for new programs to key constituencies. That would undermine his commitment to end the era of big government.

We’ll know whether he meets these challenges soon enough. If he does, then his State of the Union address will have been much more than an opening shot in a presidential campaign. It will mark a turning point in the political history of the United States and of its oldest and most successful political party. This will not only dramatically strengthen Clinton’s prospects for re-election this year, but secure his place in history alongside Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Reagan as one of the transforming presidents of the 20th century.

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