The period between the first of the year and the president's State of the Union message might be declared Balloon Blowing Time. Almost everyone who is in the White House or would like to be is floating proposals, trial balloons, to see how high they rise and who tries to shoot them down.
From the White House has come a steady stream of balloons, all designed to appeal to voters. Last week came the major balloon about what the president will offer to taxpayers when he sends Congress his budget message on Jan. 29. He is going to ask for an increase in the personal exemption by almost $2,000 for a family of four with income between $15,000 and $158,000, phasing out above $158,000 and disappearing altogether above $280,000. This is a very specific balloon.Does the president say this? No, the president doesn't say this - the balloon blowers say this. The president waits to see how it flies.
Who is going to be against it? It isn't so much an economic proposal as it is a political proposal. Probably 95 percent of all voters are in families with incomes between $15,000 and $280,000. If it means lower taxes, most folks won't hate it too much.
The five Democrats wandering about in the snow of New Hampshire are going to have to take pot shots at it: It doesn't do a thing for those who need it most, the folks too poor to pay taxes. It doesn't do enough for the middle class.
They won't say this very loud, because they would like to be as popular as a tax cut is. To the really fat cats, from whom the candidates would like to get really fat campaign contributions, they might whisper that it doesn't do enough for people with incomes over $280,000 - but they won't say it so anyone else could hear.
The Democrats, of course, are not devoid of the warm stuff with which balloons are blown up, so they are busy as can be during Balloon Blowing Time.
The five major presidential contenders (major as opposed to Lyndon Larouche) were all on C-Span and on public radio for two full hours Sunday evening in a program that the Washington Post, which is sometimes kind to Democrats, labeled "subdued." This is a kind way of saying it was sufficiently dull that anyone watching the last half-hour had obviously been flipping channels and had fallen asleep just as the presidential contenders came on.
There were three sparks of life in it: one, when Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, accused his fellow traveler Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas of having "stuck it to the little guy" as governor; two, when Clinton answered by reminding Harkin he had voted for a $23,000 pay raise for himself; and three, when moderator Cokie Roberts wrapped up the show by asking all five of them to comment on the bad things that had been said and written about them.
Clinton's response to the allegations about his "womanizing" was the funniest. He said Arkansas was such a small state that everyone knew everybody else by their first names, suggesting that if he had been guilty of anything like an untoward interest in ladies the folks would have found out long ago.
The balloons floated by the Democrats sometimes come in the form of "position papers." Former Massachusetts Sen. Paul Tsongas has the most specific balloons, which may be why he is so far back in the field.
Clinton, who was at the front of the pack until the woman stuff got blown up by balloon blowers still in hiding, said, "I don't think this election is going to be won by flurries of position papers," thereby conceding he was short on specifics. The election would be won, said he, by the man who demonstrated a "capacity to lead and our willingness to fight," showing that such balloons as he had were filled with the usual substance.
When there is nothing much going on in Washington, it's nice to have the balloons up there, rising gently over the White House and blown down from New Hampshire by the cold north wind.