The senator could not be more wrong. First, we have seen deficits like this in the past, especially during times of war. At the height of World War II, our deficit as a percentage of GDP was slightly more than 30 percent; today it is close to 4 percent of GDP. Second, if the president is correct and Iraq is about our future national security, the costs of defending our country and way of life from terrorism should indeed be shared by future generations, who will benefit from it the most.
On the issue of trade, there was some room for optimism in the debate. There weren't as many vitriolic anti-trade and protectionist statements as the candidates expressed at the AFL-CIO meeting earlier this year. But, again, while the candidates paid lip service to free trade, there also were the code words such as "fair trade" that signal protectionism by another name to the party faithful. Some of the candidates, such as Dean, would strangle future trade agreements in their infancy by pushing counterproductive labor and environmental standards. How can you be for the downtrodden and developing countries and simultaneously impose trade regulations that will impair their ability to compete in the global economy? Just as Democrats can't legitimately profess to be for jobs and at the same time anti-employer, they can't be for developing countries and anti-trade.
The Democratic challengers should visit Alabama soon because the people of Alabama, on behalf of taxpayers everywhere, have fired a shot across the bow of tax-happy politicians of all stripes - "You are part of the problem, not the solution." The voters of Alabama merely voiced what most Americans already know and what Sen. Zell Miller (D-Ga.) effectively observed in his new book, "A National Party No More," "Government takes too much from our taxpayers - big and little alike. Federal-state-local taxes come at us from every direction. It's like a never-ending meteor shower." The Tax-and-Spend 10 provide voters not a choice but merely an echo of the past. They are listening to the Herbert Hoover wing of the Republican Party, not the John F. Kennedy wing of the Democratic Party.