Bad news of possible US recession may be good news for Democrats

Washington is nothing if not a self-preservation society: politicians and policymakers do everything they can to avoid having the bottom of an economic cycle hit in the months just before voters go to the polls to choose a new president.

But despite the best efforts of the Federal Reserve and Congress, which have both moved with uncommon swiftness to provide hefty monetary and fiscal stimulus, it now looks more likely than not that the nation is about to go through a recession this year in which economic activity could well be falling into the summer, perhaps longer. It may already be in one.

Nobody welcomes a recession, but for the Democrats that probability might be considered good news. And even if the economy skirts a formal recession and only undergoes a more modest slowdown before rebounding later this year, voters are likely to blame the weak economy mostly on the Republicans, who are all but certain to be led in November by Senator John McCain. It doesn't make much difference that President Bush will not be on the ballot.

But then what? In 2009, a central quandary for the next president, particularly if it is a Democrat with healthy Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, will be how aggressively to push an agenda that calls for greater Government spending and higher taxes.

In advancing those goals, the sense that the economy is doing poorly cuts both ways. It adds to the crisis atmosphere that encourages an activist government. But it also tends to make middle-class voters want to protect themselves and wary of being asked to dip into their pockets to finance programs for those in need.

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