Trade, Fiscal Goals Split Ranks
As Democrats Plan Their Agenda
By JACKIE CALMES
Wall Street Journal
December 19, 2006; Page A1
WASHINGTON -- With two weeks to go before they take control of
Congress,
Democrats are taking sides in what is shaping up as one of the party's
biggest divides -- its identity on economic issues.
The brewing debate has been overshadowed by the national focus on
Iraq. But
at stake is the legacy of Bill Clinton and his treasury secretary,
Robert
Rubin, who in the 1990s redefined the formerly protectionist, free-
spending
party as a champion of free trade and balanced budgets. That
"establishment"
view now is under challenge from party populists and organized
labor, who
have been emboldened by gains in last month's elections to press
their case
against globalization and fiscal austerity.
The back-to-the-future push reflects a restiveness among Democratic
and
independent voters. The economy is growing, the stock market is
climbing,
and incomes are rising at the very top of the pyramid. However,
inflation-adjusted wages haven't risen much, if at all, for many
Americans
in the middle, employers have been trimming health and retirement
benefits,
and anxiety about outsourcing has spread from blue-collar factory
workers to
their white-collar counterparts.
How Democrats respond to these concerns will go far toward shaping the
coming Congress after they take power in January -- and in defining
the
contest for the 2008 presidential nomination. At this early point,
New York
Sen. Hillary Clinton is viewed as promising a continuance of her
husband's
policies, though advisers say she will seek her own distinct voice.
Many
populists, meanwhile, see an appealing candidate in former North
Carolina
Sen. John Edwards, who has campaigned since 2004 on the theme that the
nation is increasingly split into "Two Americas" -- one made up of
the haves
and the other of the have-nots.
The intraparty tensions were evident recently when House Speaker-to-
be Nancy
Pelosi had Mr. Rubin, along with former Clinton economic adviser Gene
Sperling, address a caucus of more than 100 Democrats. The group
included
both incumbents and newcomers elected on promises of changing the
economic
course set by Republicans. Mr. Rubin, a Wall Street veteran
credited with
devising the Clinton economic policy, which has become known as
"Rubinomics," got an earful at the meeting, participants say.
"There's universal consensus that jobs are leaving and the
government is not
standing up for the people in this country. I believe in trade, but
for lack
of a better word, 'fair trade,' " says Rep.-elect Joe Donnelly of
Indiana,
suggesting the need for labor standards to be built into trade
agreements.
"I understand the Wall Street perspective," says Mr. Donnelly, who
ousted a
Republican to capture a district that includes industrial Kokomo
and South
Bend. "But I was saying, 'Here's the reality of life for my
constituents.
How do we solve the problem? How do we make America work again for the
middle class?' "
Other Democrats likewise took turns at the caucus lamenting what
they see as
the threat to the middle class from the loss of manufacturing jobs
and the
rise of low-wage, low-benefit alternatives, but without offering
prescriptions.
"They're very troubled, and they're right to be troubled," Mr.
Rubin said in
an interview. "They're not wrong about what's happening; they're
right in
what they're describing. The question is, what do you do?"
In his remarks to the Democrats, Mr. Rubin anticipated the
sentiment among
some of them for import limits, acknowledging that "trade barriers
can be
tempting." But he warned they would be counterproductive. He also
acknowledged the role of globalization in holding down wages and
contributing to income inequality.
Yet, he insisted "our country can do very well" in meeting global
competition, particularly from China and India, but only with free
trade
alongside a "powerful domestic agenda" that combines fiscal
conservatism
with investments in infrastructure, education, basic research,
health and
energy.
For his part, Mr. Rubin is trying to flesh out that policy
prescription
through the Hamilton Project, which he helped found and fund last
year. It
is producing research papers aimed at providing new ideas for a
centrist
domestic agenda. Another recently formed group of centrist
Democrats, Third
Way, is completing an "agenda for a 21st-century economy" that
foresees the
battle lines forming between "economic realists" and the growing
ranks of
"neopopulists."
"Neopopulists have correctly diagnosed genuine middle-class
economic anxiety
about the future, and they rightly recognize that the market alone
will not
meet the challenges of the new age," a draft overview from the
Third Way
paper says. "But where they go wrong is to see the vast economic
structural
changes that are occurring as mainly a threat to the middle class that
requires American economic policy to turn inward."
Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Chicago, a pro-trade centrist whom House
Democrats
recently elected as their caucus chairman, has sought to persuade
business
groups to work with the party toward policies that would ease the
pressures
to retreat from free trade or fiscal conservatism. As a Clinton
adviser, Mr.
Emanuel helped win passage of the North American Free Trade
Agreement in
1993. But he says he recently told the Business Roundtable, an
organization
made up of top corporate chief executives, "We can't do what you
want if all
our constituents believe globalization is a knife at their throats."
On the party's left, meanwhile, the AFL-CIO is mobilizing along
with allies
in advocacy groups such as the Campaign for America's Future and the
Economic Policy Institute. The groups say any trade agreements should
include rules to safeguard workers and the environment. They say
they plan
to lobby to repeal tax breaks and subsidies that they believe
encourage
corporations to send work abroad, and push for the government to do
more to
promote health-care coverage, education and retirement security. EPI's
founder, Jeff Faux, expresses hope that Democrats' takeover of
Congress will
mark the end of the pro-business Reagan era. He considers President
Clinton's two terms to be part of that era.
"The Democrats now have a historic opportunity," he wrote recently.
"The
opposition will inevitably charge" Democrats with socialism, tax-
and-spend
and protectionism, he said, but "if this intimidates the Democrats,
the
opportunity will pass them by."
That's not an attitude congressional Democrats or most of the 2008
presidential hopefuls are likely to adopt anytime soon, especially
while Mr.
Bush holds the presidency and its veto power. Moreover, last month's
elections added to the ranks of fiscally conservative Democrats -- Mr.
Donnelly among them -- who campaigned to put the nation back on a
path to
balanced budgets. That goal is shared by the incoming chairmen of
the House
and Senate Budget committees, Rep. John Spratt of South Carolina
and Sen.
Kent Conrad of North Dakota.
While liberal groups believe they have the party establishment on the
defensive on trade, they complain that on budget and spending
issues, fiscal
conservatives have the upper hand. That stems in large part from
Democrats'
2006 campaign promise to restore a "pay as you go" budget rule,
which would
require that any new spending, or tax cuts, be accompanied by
offsetting
revenue increases or spending cuts to avoid widening the deficit.
Robert Borosage, co-director of the liberal Campaign for America's
Future,
objects that by insisting on a pay-as-you-go approach Democrats are
tying
their own hands as they turn toward addressing "decade-old pent-up
demands"
for domestic spending.
Republicans, he says, never worry about deficits when they cut
taxes. "What
pay-go says is that the nation's first priority is the budget
deficit, and
that's just not true," Mr. Borosage says, citing instead the war in
Iraq,
global warming, energy dependence and trade deficits as bigger
problems than
the budget shortfall. "When you have a national crisis, you spend the
money."
