David Brooks: If the president is truly committed to a strategy for progressive fiscal stability, as Bill Clinton was, he’ll make that the center of his campaign. He’ll earn a mandate.

David Brooks writes in The New York Times:

Going back to 1962, domestic spending has hovered around 3.3 percent of G.D.P. In big-spending years (the Jimmy Carter years), it rose to about 4.4 percent. In low-spending years (Ronald Reagan’s and Bill Clinton’s second terms), it fell to about 2.9 percent of G.D.P.

During Obama’s presidency, domestic spending topped out at 4 percent of G.D.P. But, in the Obama budget, over the next 10 years, that spending would fall to 2.2 percent, much lower than anything Reagan achieved. Under Paul Ryan’s budget, by the way, that spending would fall to 1.8 percent, which the Obama administration regards as savagely low.

I’ll just say that my conversations reaffirm my conviction that Obama is a pragmatic liberal who cares about fiscal sustainability, who has been willing to compromise for its sake, but who has not offered anything close to a sufficient program to avoid a debt crisis.

But we have a campaign in front of us. If the president is truly committed to a strategy for progressive fiscal stability, as Bill Clinton was, he’ll make that the center of his campaign. He’ll earn a mandate. He’ll win over independents who want fiscal discipline but worry about the way Republicans get there.

If he doesn’t have a passion for fiscal stability, he’ll campaign on side issues and try to win by scaring everybody about the other side.

We’ll see.