Rep. Jim Nussle (R-Iowa), the House Budget Committee chairman, maintains that one reason the politics of deficits are different is that the deficits themselves are different. Although he said he agrees that growth in the budget needs to be restrained, the Bush deficits are less troublesome than the deficits that generated such controversy in the late 1980s through the opening of Clinton's second term. "These deficits were created for deliberate reasons" -- to jump-start the economy and pay for war -- while those earlier ones were "neglect deficits" that reflected an unwillingness by lawmakers to make responsible choices, Nussle said.
The chairman agreed that concern about deficit spending is an important obstacle in selling his proposed changes to Social Security.
 
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Although agreeing that the current deficit is a "gigantic number," he said as a percentage of the total economy, the figure is less worrisome. The 2004 deficit was about 3.6 percent of the nation's gross domestic product, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That's less than in 1983, when the budget soared to 6 percent of the economy, or the 4.7 percent that made the deficit a major political issue in 1992. Still, it's greater than the 2.2 percent of 1995, when Republicans forced a confrontation with Clinton over his reluctance to cut spending more.
In the 1990s, most Republicans did not make nuanced distinctions about whether some deficits were bad and some were acceptable. In March 1995, a proposed balanced budget amendment passed the House and failed in the Senate by one vote. Nine months later, the GOP congressional majority forced a government shutdown over the question of whether the budget could be balanced in seven years, as Republicans wanted, or nine, as Clinton said was preferable. As it happened, higher-than-expected economic growth, as well as a bipartisan budget deal in 1997, finished the job by 1998.
Riedl said the 1990s experience has colored the decisions Republicans have made the past few years. After being bested politically during two government shutdowns of 1995 and early 1996, many Republicans have decided there is no gain to be had in austerity politics, he said.
Now out of power, Gingrich is urging Republicans to avoid benefit cuts during the debate over Social Security, and instead emphasize the increased benefits that people might receive under Bush's plan for individual accounts if they invest wisely. A decade earlier, by contrast, he was the author of a budget strategy that emphasized slowing the rate of growth in Medicare -- confident that people would be willing to accept some sacrifice in the cause of reducing government.
Beyond political calculations, there has been an ideological shift in the party. Castle said many of his colleagues think as long as taxes are kept low, decisions about spending do not matter so much.
Nancy Belden, a pollster who is president of the American Association for Public Opinion Research and who recently studied the political implications of the deficit, said the public takes a sufficiently "dim view" of the deficit that they are not eager for more tax cuts. On the other hand, there remains strong demand for new spending -- one factor raising doubts about how strong the return of deficit politics will be.
"It's not a high hot-button issue at the moment, but it could become one," Belden said. "For it to become one, it really needs political leadership."
Staff writers Brian Faler and Claudia Deane contributed to this report.
