Yes, There Are Issues

One would not mistake it for a meeting of the American Economic Association. Nor has it yet taken on the serious sheen of a think-tank symposium on economic policy. But Campaign '88 is changing, slowly evolving into a serious debate over budgetary blueprints for post-Reagan America. In the wake of the October stock market crash, the universal lament was that none of the candidates, with the exception of Democrat Bruce Babbitt, was talking realistically about ways to reduce the deficit. Now, surprisingly, a demanding electorate and a hectoring press corps have forced the candidates to defend their fiscal proposals, and a few have even responded with some reasonable policies. Two weeks before the Iowa caucuses, the usual focus on personalities and images has partly given way to, of all things, a serious debate over economic issues.

As each candidate tried to position himself last week for the final-stretch run, the gamesmanship was obvious. But what was also striking was the frequency with which candidates couched their arguments in economic terms. Michael Dukakis, for example, felt a political need to challenge Babbitt's current media boomlet. Dukakis' chosen weapon? An attack on the fairness of Babbitt's antideficit panacea: a national sales tax. Richard Gephardt, whose political fortunes have been as volatile as the options market, crept into a narrow lead in Iowa in two major polls last week. His secret: a strong dose of populist economics built around his get-tough posturing on trade. In Iowa, Gephardt shares the old-line Democratic constituencies mostly with Simon. The two men traded epithets last week, and the battlefield was their respective records on tax equity: Gephardt's support of the 1981 Reagan cuts vs. Simon's lonely opposition to the 1986 reform act.

The economic debate is not as heated on the Republican side, partly because most contenders still worship at the shrine of bitter opposition to tax increases. Still, notice what Jack Kemp did when he needed a few stones to sling at Bob Dole and George Bush. He turned, as he so often does, to economics. After first pelting both front runners for temporizing on past tax cuts, Kemp followed up last week by deriding them for trying to freeze Social Security benefits in 1985.

These issues were not isolated blips on the political radar screen. In fact, nothing better illustrates the growing sophistication of the public and press on economics than the intense pressure on the candidates to offer credible proposals to shrink the deficit. Budget realism has become the new litmus test in both parties, as Pete du Pont discovered to his chagrin when he recently called a cousin, a well-heeled doctor, to ask for a campaign contribution. Rather than reaching for his checkbook, the doctor chided du Pont about his supply-side antipathy to new taxes. "Not raising taxes is crazy," said the cousin. "We've got to raise taxes."