House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt didn't mention the idea of rolling back last year's slanted tax cuts in his follow-up to the president's State of the Union address Tuesday night. Not very surprising. Both of the members of his party's leadership who have dared broach the issue thus far -- Senator Edward Kennedy and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle -- have come under considerable fire for doing so, both from the usual Republican loyalists and the larger mainstream media.
But if by chance you watched Bush's speech on CBS, you might have seen something downright astonishing: a floor-shot of a clapping session with the Republican side of the chamber uniformly arisen and the Democratic side of the chamber uniformly seated -- except, that is, for Dick Gephardt. The applause line: "Let's make these tax cuts permanent."
Yet even this would not have been a total shock if you had attended a major economic policy address Gephardt gave last week to members of the Democratic Leadership Council, the birthing ward of the centrist "New Democrats." Special tribute was paid to a few key individuals in the room -- AFL-CIO president John Sweeney and IAFF (International Association of Fire Fighters) president Harold Schaitberger -- such that the audience might have expected Gephardt to take on the divide between unions (his allies) and the DLC, a long-time supporter of free trade and the "flexible" labor policies which unions deplore.
Gephardt didn't do that. But neither did he follow the lead of the introductory speaker, DLC chairman Al From -- who, a la Daschle, railed at the Bush administration for destroying the budget surplus. The minority leader mentioned "fiscal responsibility" only once, in passing. But he did have some pointed comments on tax policy: "It's my view that we shouldn't be reconsidering tax cuts in the middle of a recession. And in any case, the president has taken it off the table."
Why on earth is Dick Gephardt, once regarded as the captain of old-school, union-based Democratic leadership, suddenly mouthing the White House line on tax policy?
Unfortunately, it's because he's perceptive, and he's spotted a noticeable and documented trend over the last half-decade which has middle-income white males and union voters increasingly ticking the conservative column on a number of issues. Not just ANWR drilling (which had Teamster President James Hoffa writing op-eds for the Bushies last August); tax cuts too. The "it's your money" line Bush used with his tax cut last spring sold quite well among these union voters.
Though unionists are almost certainly going against their own economic interests -- especially when it comes to Bush's high-margin-slanted tax cut -- such considerations seem almost vulgar in this time of national unity and patriotism. (Patriotism being yet another value the Republican Party has somehow managed to trademark.) Meanwhile, on a cultural level, the relentless Republican drive to capture "family values" or "homespun Texas values" is beginning to draw off socially conservative, middle-income voters, who now increasingly see the Democratic party as a hostage of urban special interest politics.
It's fascinating to watch the pillars of Gephardt 2004 take shape and heft right before your very eyes. Unfortunately, it begs the question: Who in the leadership remains to speak for the granite principles of the Democratic party? And more immediately, how the hell are we going to pay for Bush's ridiculous tax cut?
