Making an issue of the deficit is part of a larger assault on the GOP competence to govern; part of a multi-prong attack to undermine confidence in the governing party and create reason for change. Specific solutions are not nearly as important as simply selling the crisis (e.g. see Bush Administration 2001 to present). If you scare and convince enough people that the current course is perilous they'll look for change even if the change is ill defined.
There are many ways to frame the crisis in ways ordinary people will understand:
Borrowing from our children. There's always been an ethic/myth that each generation in America will leave a better country for their children; that every parent will sacrifice so that their child will be better off. Current GOP policy puts that on its head.
The "birth tax" concept is a bad way to point this out. It depersonalizes the theft to a nameless child. The winner of the Moveon Bush in 30 Seconds ad was beautifully done, but was similarly impersonal, with nameless children working assembly lines. Instead, we must make adult Americans look across their dinner table and see themselves taking money directly from their own children.
Imagine a candidate in a debate looking at the audience and saying "If you think you deserve a better life than your children raise your hand. How many here can look at your children across the dinner table and say 'please pay for my tax cut so I can live better today'?" Shame on this country if we frame the debate that way and lose.
National security. Most people don't have any idea how much money we've borrowed from China and other foreign countries. Xenophobic patriotic Toby Keith America might be quite disheartened to know that they're up to their asses in hock to the red Chinese. There are ways to play this that could create a real wedge for the core GOP igno-blowhards (think Michael Savage listeners).
Corporate giveaways. Why can't we say that it's the elites, the well-connecteds, the fat-cat corporate types, the GOP "Rangers" and "Pioneers" who are responsible for the deficit? If you're in good with the GOP/corporate/media corruptocracy you're on the government gravy train, while the average Joe (and his/her children) is paying the bills. Kansas will be just as fed up with the "insiders feeding the taxpayer trough" as they are about the Hollywood/media elite if we just paint the picture for them.
We don't have to talk about cutting programs, smaller government, etc. If Reagan could make people believe he could cut taxes, increase military spending and balance the budget at the same time, we sure as hell ought to be able to convince people that cutting corporate subsidies and giveaways will significantly reduce the deficit. The actual numbers don't matter that much -- what matters is creating an urgency for change and a perception of a solution.
In conclusion, Chris, you're looking at this from a GOP-slanted public policy standpoint. You're taking taxes off the table because of our inability thus far to personalize the generational theft of the tax cuts, while instead focusing on the GOP friendly territory of program cuts and spending waste. If we recast the deficit in terms of personal guilt/responsibility, national security and corporate/insider corruption it is a political winner for the Democrats.
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