How might a Democratic president go about establishing himself as a limited-government liberal? As a younger, more idealistic journalist, I wrote a
book trying to square my belief in federal activism with commitment to limited government. In the 15 years since, my advice hasn't much changed (or been taken). New Democrats and Blue Dogs aside, the party's congressional leadership has never really recognized that the problem of government excess and failure is grounded in reality as well as in the other side's distortions and misperceptions.
If they hope to avoid a repeat of Clinton's 1994 fate in 2010, the president and his party might think about setting a long-term upper limit on the size of government. Because of the bank bailouts and stimulus plan, federal spending will exceed
25 percent of GDP this year, and public spending at all levels will exceed 44 percent. If liberals were clear that in normal times federal spending shouldn't be more than 22 percent and that the public sector as a whole shouldn't exceed a third of GDPthe level of Clinton's second termthe fear of Democrats covertly foisting a social-democratic model on America would melt away. This kind of ceiling would mean that government couldn't grow at the expense of the economy.
