Budget Defi-wha?

Slate's Dan Gross wonders why fiscal policy was MIA at the DNC. This seems like an easy enough one, actually. Dems aren't really particularly interested in selling themselves as deficit hawks: They're not about to make a big deal of Bush's runaway spending because, while they might spend the money differently, rolling back government outlays isn't exactly high on their priority list. And calling for across-the-board tax hikes is political seppuku. That leaves the more palatable proposal of hiking taxes on the wealhy, which you did see discussed at the convention—but if that's the sole solution to ballooning deficits you're willing to contemplate (publicly), you may as well focus on that by way of a populist "fairness" argument rather than draw attention to the broader problem, some of whose causes you'd prefer not to address.