Washington — The old year ended with an international battle against terrorism and a domestic fight over economic principles. The new year begins today with an international battle against terrorism, a domestic fight over economic principles and a looming election.
The fight against terror is a new American battle, the fight about how to adjust taxes and stimulate the economy an ancient American struggle. But the addition of this year's midterm congressional elections will threaten domestic unity, test President Bush's leadership, challenge congressional prerogatives and, by this time next year, perhaps adjust the balance of power in American politics.
"We are going to have one debate after another about money," said Sen. Richard G. Lugar, the Indiana Republican who is an important voice on foreign affairs.
Those debates about money whose taxes should be lowered and by how much, whether to increase benefits for the unemployed and uninsured will be conducted against the backdrop of a nation united in war but divided in political power. The Democrats hold a 50-49 majority in the Senate (with one Independent) while the Republicans hold a 222-211 majority in the House (with two Independents).
Voters won't cast their ballots for another 10 months, and it is difficult to know whether President Bush's high approval ratings will endure through the autumn. Even if they do, there is no assurance that presidential popularity will have much effect on congressional contests.
Six decades ago, in the wake of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Democrats lost 50 seats in the House and nine in the Senate. In 1950, not five months after the beginning of the conflict in Korea, President Harry S Truman's Democrats lost 29 House seats and six Senate seats. One of the GOP's big disadvantages as it prepares for November's elections: 60 percent of the seats being contested in the Senate belong to Republicans.
The Democrats howled about the death of the economic-stimulus negotiations late last month "We have given and given and given but there is a point where we can't give more," Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota told reporters but privately they couldn't be happier that the measure will be on the agenda when Congress returns Jan. 23. It will provide them another forum to accuse the Republicans of using tax policy to subsidize big corporations and to bring attention to their efforts to extend unemployment insurance and boost the minimum wage.
"There is nothing that divides our parties more than economic philosophy," said Daschle. Throughout most of the past century, the parties have swapped positions on international engagement and trade policy but have basically clung to their domestic economic philosophies. (Both parties, to be sure, have made important midcourse adjustments. In the FDR years, Democrats began to embrace notions that government spending could stimulate the economy. In the Reagan years, Republicans began to emphasize lower taxes rather than balanced budgets.)
These different economic philosophies were on full display during the debate over the stimulus bill and in the programs both parties plan to push this year.
The Republicans will fight for new energy initiatives (the Democrats will push back with environmental questions) and for enhanced presidential trade authority (the Democrats will push back with concerns about the environment and cheap foreign labor). The Democrats, meanwhile, will redouble their efforts to pass a farm-subsidy bill that died in mid-December (the Republicans will argue that the subsidies cost too much and violate free-trade principles) and to win $300 checks for workers whose incomes in 2000 were too low to permit them to qualify for last summer's tax rebates (the Republicans will be skeptical of providing money to people who don't pay income taxes).
But the tensions on Capitol Hill aren't only between Republicans and Democrats. Important institutional resentments separate the House and Senate as well. The House passed the fast-track trade authority, but the Senate didn't. The House passed the economic-stimulus package (twice), but the Senate didn't. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, the Illinois Republican, believes there is sufficient House support to pass the president's energy bill, but the Senate refuses to take it up.
"To me the Senate is an enigma," Hastert said just before the House closed down for the winter holidays, adding: "You know, it's either their way or the highway, and unfortunately so many of those pieces of legislation have hit the highway."
And so a new year begins with the old arguments and with a new way of looking at things: The light of American politics now is viewed through the prism of terrorism. But this, too, is true: In an election year, the old impulses and the old instincts never stay dormant.
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