The Democratic candidates, one a professed Socialist, offer a different road to fiscal disaster – more spending. There is a slight variation on the spending theme. Bernie Sanders would ramp up spending by $18 trillion in the next decade by lowering interest rates on student loans, providing free tuition in public colleges and NHS-style health care free at the point of delivery, and rebuilding the nation's infrastructure. That would bring the federal government's claim on the nation's income from its historic portion of about 20 percent of GDP to a whopping 30 percent, which is a key part of the Sanders "revolution". Hillary Clinton prefers to label her outlays "tax credits", which have the same effect on the deficit as spending but doesn't sound so irresponsible. She plans to provide such credits for those caring for elderly parents; to cover out-of-pocket medical costs; for businesses hiring apprentices and the unemployed "from certain target groups", including ex-felons; for expenditures on climate-change mitigation; to help with college tuition. And more.
Sanders would squeeze the rich until the pips squeak, of which, unfortunately for him, there are an insufficient number to match his spending plans. He would raise top marginal rates to 52 percent from 39.6 percent, treat capital gains as ordinary income, and impose a tax on financial transactions, the latter known as a "Tobin tax" and believed by most economists to increase the volatility of share prices – just what we need in these days of 300-point fluctuations. Clinton would allow the Bush tax cuts on annual earnings over $250,000 to expire, sharply increase taxes on short-term capital gains, charge corporations leaving high-tax America for greener pastures an "exit fee", and generally restore personal taxes to the levels prevailing during the prosperous years of her husband's presidency. Both would require splashing more red ink across the national ledgers, although in Clinton's case a few gallons less than other candidates are implicitly calling for.
Lest you dismiss all of this as empty threats to drown the fisc in red ink, consider this: each of the last three presidents "turned his main tax proposals into law within four years," according to Richard Rubin of the Wall Street Journal. And Donald Trump, the specificity of whose tax-cut proposals far exceeds the specificity of his revenue-raising ideas, is at the moment miles ahead of his rivals on the road to the White House.
With about 40 percent in national polls, he leads Rubio and Cruz by 15 and 19 points, respectively. He leads in ten of the next fourteen voting states, including by 16 points in Rubio's home state of Florida, and by a small margin in Governor John Kasich's delegate-rich home state of Ohio, although that was before a stellar performance by Kasich in Thursday's debate in Houston, in which the mud-wrestlers – Cruz, Rubio, Trump – made his reasonableness on most issues even more attractive than it would otherwise have seemed. (It is rumored that Dr. Carson was also on the podium.) Cruz, however, leads in his home state of Texas, which he must win to stay in the race. Trump appeals to almost every demographic group, including Evangelicals who have reasons to be offended by the twice-divorced, foul mouthed, gay-supporting, holder of what Cruz, with a wink and a smirk, derides as "New York values", leaving it to his audience to fill in the details.
At this writing, we seem to be headed for a Trump vs. Clinton general election battle. But four developments might put paid to that prospect:
* The Donald might hit and antagonize an unintended target by shooting from the lip. That is unlikely, not because such a shot won't be fired, but because nothing he says seems capable of disaffecting his supporters.
* Trump's opponents might cede the field to Marco Rubio, almost everyone's second choice, who beats Trump in head-to-head polls. But such defragmentation of the anti-Trump vote is not in sight. Cruz will stay the course unless he loses in his native Texas on Tuesday. And Kasich won't withdraw unless he loses his home state of Ohio on March 15 to Trump, and fails in mid-Western states more congenial to his brand of pragmatic conservatism, if that is what it should be called, rather than mere pragmatism. So it's Trump against the field, making his typical 40 percent share enough to win a hatful of delegates, especially in states in which the delegates are assigned in proportion to the popular vote.
* Mike Bloomberg, three-term mayor of New York City, might enter the race as an independent. His wealth ($40 billion) makes Trump's ($4 billion) look like petty cash, so he could easily self-finance, a plus with voters who believe "the interests" are making their lives difficult. The socially liberal Bloomberg, a Democrat before turning Republican in order to get on the New York City ballot, favors free trade; few restrictions on immigration; strict gun control; nanny-like limitations on the sugar, salt and soda we are allowed to consume; and a right to abortion. He would split the liberal vote with Clinton, paving the way to the White House for the Republican nominee – unless Mayor Mike does well enough to become President Bloomberg.
* The FBI, currently conducting a criminal investigation of Mrs. Clinton's use of her personal server to send and receive classified information, might refer her case to the Department of Justice for prosecution. After all, Clinton's handling of classified information was surely more blatantly casual than was General Petraeus', and he was forced to plead guilty to a misdemeanor to avoid being charged with a felony. If Clinton's handling of classified information is referred, but she nevertheless soldiers on, it would be as a seriously wounded warrior. Or Joe Biden, who has been telling supporters he regrets not entering the lists, might make a late entry to pick up the fallen progressive flag.
Meanwhile, Democrats, are eyeing polls that show Clinton losing both to Rubio and Cruz, but trumping Trump. So they are rooting for the self-styled billionaire to lock up the Republican nomination in a few days, on Super Tuesday, when some dozen states with about 25 percent of the delegates to the Republican convention will hold primaries. They might want to be careful what they wish for.