How the Democrats Are Different

...There are crucial distinctions between 1988 and 1992, however...

...Are Clinton and Gore much different from those old Southerners who, for generations, have been the Democratic element in a conservative Congressional coalition that has stymied liberal Democratic Presidents, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson, and has upheld the vetoes of conservative Republican Presidents like Reagan and Bush...

...And yes, an America in which the wealthiest, those making over $200,000 a year, are asked to pay their fair share...

...There was Paul Tsongas, with his business-minded, somewhat conservative economic views, standing to Clinton' s right...

...Second, as time goes by, the warrior who won the Gulf War looks more like the wimp who couldn't deliver the knockout punch...

...These programs echo the New Deal of Roosevelt, the Fair Deal of Truman, the New Frontier of John F. Kennedy, and the Great Society of Johnson...

...Trickle-down was the prelude to economic breakdown...

...It is likely that more women will cast ballots this year, as a percentage of the total vote, than ever, and that the gender gap between men and women, with women more heavily Democratic, will be greater than at any time in the past...

...Clinton sees his party's approach as a way to right a long-existing wrong and "invest" the proceeds in the country's future...

...Moreover, all this would be accomplished through increasing everyone's after-tax income: Greater fairness would make for greater fullness...

...The first and most decisive one is that the economy was not in a slump four years ago...

...Uncle Sam never saw the expected revenues...

...Without using the nasty word "redistribution," the Democrats intend to redistribute the tax load from where it is to where it belongs...

...If the same line of reasoning had prevailed at the time of the New Deal, the United States—and the rest of the world —would still be wallowing in the depths of The Great Depression...

...So did Clinton...

...this year, the nation writhes in the grip of the longest recession since World War II...

...In some states Clinton and Gore may be swept to victory on the skirts of the female Congressional candidates, just as in 1948 Harry S. Truman won a number of states by riding on the coattails of Democratic candidates for Congress...

...It would be $30 billion in the pockets of American families—a shot in the arm of the economy...

...The theory was that the investing class would use its newfound funds to build factories, employ people, and multiply goods and services...

...Is the New Covenant anything more than a populist nose job on that ugly old plutocratic face...

...At times the language of the platform and the words of the players fit so neatly together that one had the impression the whole performance was scripted in Hollywood...

...Their argument was that it would cost the government about $30 billion a year, further unbalancing an already staggeringly unbalanced budget...

...Clinton says he will do better things...

...Its euphemistic language notwithstanding, the overall thrust of the Democratic platform is toward a more equitable and effective distribution of income...

...In his acceptance address, Clinton envisioned "an America in which middle class families' incomes?not their taxes—are going up...

...Acareful reading of the platform leaves no doubt that the Democratic Party stands well to the left of center, although it tries to restate its principles in euphemistic synonyms more pleasing to the present ear...

...As the delegates convened in Madison Square Garden, a New York Times/CBS poll showed him running last in a three-man race that included H. Ross Perot, and neck-to-neck with President George Bush in a two-man contest...

...It may very well be that Bush is the victim of Ronald Reagan's "voodoo economics...

...Instead, they turned to the stock market...

...Dukakis said he would do things better...

...In a brief four words the platform calls for "an indexed minimum wage...

...Growth, to be sure, has been the Holy Grail for many Presidents, including Ronald Reagan and George Bush...

...Early on, the document positions itself: "We reject both the do-nothing government of the last 12 years and the big government theory that says we can hamstring business and tax and spend our way to prosperity...

...It would mean more jobs, more pay, more revenue to the government...

...Actually, if the tax relief to the middle (or working) class came in the form of a 2 or 3 per cent reduction in the payroll tax that goes to finance the Social Security system, there would not even be a start-up cost to the U.S...

...This was classic "trickle-down" economics...

...The beneficiaries of the tax cut were unwilling to sink their money into fixed investments like plants and equipment while the "market"—the buying power of wage and salaried families—was in decline...

...The New Covenant...

...Clinton repeated the words in the second paragraph of his acceptance speech...

...Current assets are close to half a trillion dollars, and in 2015 will be roughly $10 trillion...

...Treasury in the form of a humongous tax cut...

...When the convention ended, the Times/CBS poll put him 24 points ahead of Bush...

...Four years ago, as the media keep reminding us, Democratic Presidential nominee Michael S. Dukakis departed from Atlanta 17 points ahead of George Bush in the polls...

...The costly gift to the rich tripled the national debt...

...The Reagan formula, hardly abandoned by Bush, was to enrich the richest with a gift from the U.S...

...Although part of the latest Democratic strategy may be a semantic ploy, that may be what is needed to make the New Covenant play in Peoria...

...But it is the President, not his mindless mentor, who is—to use a Bushism—in "deep deep doo doo...

...Indexing the minimum wage, in the same way that Social Security benefits are indexed or that wages and salaries are indexed in many union contracts, would be a giant step toward assuring a more equitable distribution of pre-tax income to the millions at the bottom of the economic totem pole...

...Updating it required action by Congress and the President, leading to the usual conflicts and compromises that offered too little too late...

...Countdown '92 HOW THE DEMOCRATS ARE DIFFERENT by GUS TYLER In the four days between the opening and closing of the Democratic National Convention, the fortunes of Bill Clinton were turned turvy-topsy...

...Neither Tsongas nor Brown, of course, were bit players reciting other people's lines...

...In workplaces where there are no unions, the minimum still serves as the basis for calculating other levels of compensation...

...Where the Democrats and Republicans part company, though, is on the critical matter of how to achieve it...

...At the heart of this change is economic growth...

...The Republicans cite them as examples of the Democrats' compulsion to "tax and spend...

...His implied promise to rid the world of Iraq's Saddam Hussein has proven to be no more valid than his promise not to raise taxes...

...And there, between them, stood the embodiment of the new Democratic Party...

...To appreciate the full potential impact of this notion, one has to recall that the Federal minimum is the foundation of the wage structure in the United States...

...Finally, Dukakis stressed personal competence above political concepts, whereas Clinton has elevated principles and program above persona...

...Consequently, reducing the payroll tax now would not endanger the Trust Fund...

...A review of the convention dynamics strongly suggests that Clinton (or his collaborators) was not only attempting to dress up his liberal platform in a business suit, but that he was also trying to present himself (and Gore) as a man from the mainstream traveling down the middle of the road in company with the middle class...

...But even before Perot announced on the final day of the convention that he was pulling out because the Democratic Party had been "revitalized," the polls had the Arkansas Governor ahead of his two opponents...

...The conclusion that the Democrats, therefore, do not seek a more equitable distribution is not...

...It keeps running huge surpluses—about $60 billion last year, with a corresponding sum anticipated this year...

...The New Covenant may sound like what George Bush derides as that "vision thing," but Clinton and Gore may ride it to victory...

...The Democrats will also have more women competing for Senate and House seats than ever...

...The point was dramatized at the convention in the debate over the middle-class tax cut, when the Tsongas people brought in their minority report opposing the proposal...

...Simultaneously, their elevation would elevate everybody above them and, ipso facto, help elevate the economy as a whole...

...A week later, after the first bus-storming trip by Clinton and his Vice-Presidential choice, Senator Al Gore of Tennessee, a Time/CNN poll raised the margin to 27 points...

...Gus Tyler, a frequent contributor, is Assistant President of the ILGWU...

...Social Security is financed through a Trust Fund that is not part of the budget...

...The $30 billion dollars of putatively lost income to the Federal government would not be money down the drain...

...For instance, it substitutes "invest" for "spend" and "middle class" for "working class...

...Bush's misbegotten nomination of Thomas to the Supreme Court has revivified the women's movement...

...It did not work...

...That could happen again...

...As John Maynard Keynes pointed out in theory and as Roosevelt demonstrated in practice, to incur a debt to give people added buying power is the quickest way to "prime the pump...

...Instead, we offer a third way...

...Indeed, the expectation of President Reagan (and his advisers) was that the rest of the nation would prosper, the resultant revenues to Uncle Sam would cut the deficit, and within four years the budget would be balanced...

...In the years from ' 88 to '92, the public has learned how to read Bush's lips...

...Quite the contrary, by stimulating the economy it would generate more income for the Treasury and, yes, the Social Security system...

...He has presented himself less as the practitioner than as the preacher—a modern Moses handing down a "New Covenant" in Madison Square Garden...

...How solemnly sacred in its overtones...

...The interplay on the convention floor reinforced the impression of a party occupying the center...

...Will a Democratic victory really make a difference...

...they deserted Main Street and played on Wall Street...

...And at this moody moment in American life millions of voters are crying out for a Moses, as the Perot "phenom" proved...

...Nevertheless, President Bush continues to push the failed policy with his proposals for the capital gains tax...

...That brings us to a big question: So what...

...Consider two items: taxation and wages...

...We will relieve the tax burden on middle-class Americans by forcing the rich to pay their fair share," says the new platform...

...There was Jerry Brown, with his eloquent egalitarianism, standing to Clinton's left...

...The funds would also be used to "confront homelessness by renovating, preserving and expanding the stock of affordable low-income housing...

...Happenstance, happily managed, projected the desired image of a new party using a new way to bring about "change...

...Treasury...

...The observation is correct...

...An expanding, entrepreneurial economy of high skill, high wage jobs is the most important family policy, urban policy, labor policy, minority policy, and foreign policy America can have," says the platform...

...In commenting on the difference between the present and past Democratic Party platforms, the Wall Street Journal noted that in 1972 there was a plank calling for "an equitable distribution of wealth," but in 1992 no such reference is to be found...

...Each did what came naturally to him...

...Then, once the Republicans had their moment on the tube, Bush caught up and ultimately left Dukakis behind in the dust...

...As in the case of tax reform, fairness would be the fuel for fullness...

...None of the above means the race is over...

...Third, Dukakis did not have Clinton's secret weapon—a man called Clarence Thomas...

...But it is in the area of wages that the Democrats have put forward perhaps their most dramatic proposal...

...Those good intentions soon got lost, because there was no mechanism to keep the minimum in line with the rising cost of living...

...Unions negotiating contracts use it as their point of departure...

...The taxes derived from having the wealthy "pay their fair share" would be "invest[ed] in education and job training," and in affording the people on welfare "the child care and health care they need to go to work and achieve long-term self-sufficiency...

...Yet how appropriate for a ticket headed by two men from states where the Bible remains the Good Book and the revealed word of the Lord...

...When first introduced in the mid-19305, the minimum wage was intended to provide something close to a "living wage...

...What would the Democrats do...

...It thus appears that the Democrats have at least an even chance of winning in November...