Pity the poor Democrats. They thought they had discovered
the perfect issue: "fiscal discipline." By draping themselves in the mantle of
fiscal rectitude, Democrats discovered they could oppose tax cuts without
advocating any specific government spending -- thereby avoiding both the
potentially controversial nature of any new outlay and the generic "Big Spender"
label (as in "Democrats who just want to spend the taxpayers' money instead of
letting them have some of it back"). Even better, with the invention of the
"Social Security lockbox" -- which would wall off surplus revenues coming into
the Social Security trust fund from the rest of the budget -- it became possible

What is "the third way?" According to the joint declaration by Tony Blair and Gerhard Schröder ("The Third Way/Die Neue Mitte"), it is "about addressing the concerns of people who live and cope with societies undergoing rapid change--both winners and losers. In this newly emerging world, people want politicians who approach issues without ideological preconceptions and who, applying their values and principles, search for practical solutions to their problems through honest, wellconstructed and pragmatic solutions."

Its key features, according to the same document, are: