And he is calling for an ambitious antipoverty program, the sort of policy that was supposed to have died with President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society. That doesn't sound like liberalism in retreat. The idea of more government spending is simply not as poisonous as it used to be. For one thing, there's a surplus. It lets Democrats be Democrats again.
Republicans say, give the money back to the people.
But the people don't seem to want it. Tax cuts rank low on voters' agenda. The people say they would rather see the surplus spent on priorities like health care and education. Resentment of government has been driving the political agenda since the tax revolt of the late 1970s. But recently, according to the Gallup poll, trust in government has been going up.