With the recent push to privatize Social Security the Bush Administration has shown once again that it is totally unconcerned about fiscal responsibility. They plan to ignore the $2 trillion in transition costs to privatize Social Security. They also want to make their tax cuts permanent, vote for unprecedented levels of pork, all the while spending $200 billion in Iraq. It is time for Democrats to stand up and draw a line in the sand. We need to pick a number, e.g. $10 trillion, and say the national debt can go no higher and demand a credible plan to bring it back down to some reasonable level in the next 10 years.
This means no money for Iraq, unless they can find a way to pay for it, no privatizing Social Security unless they have can come up with transition costs and no more tax cuts without actual spending cuts to offset them. This is good policy but also good politics, Democrats will own fiscal responsibility, they will look strong, they can credibly attack Bush's proposals without being labeled as obstructionists, and it will highlight Bush's fiscal irresponsibility. Best of all it is simple enough for everyone to understand and for the media to cover.