In submitting a wartime budget to the Congress at the start of an election year, President Bush has certainly put the hay — as Ralph McGill of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution used to say — where the mules can get to it. The budget puts a clear priority on building up the military now that we are in the early years of what is bound to be a long war against Islamic terrorists. By our lights, it is a wise strategic choice. It includes a sharp increase in outlays for the war department and homeland security, even before supplemental outlays that will be sought for the Battles of Iraq and Afghanistan. It is what one might have expected in a season when North Korea has yet to be confronted, Iran is preparing to escalate its involvement in the war, and when the intentions of several other rogue states are unclear — and the Battles of Iraq and Afghanistan are still hot.

Yet no sooner was the budget delivered to the Hill than the minority leader in the Senate, Thos. Daschle, asserted that the president “has made a series of choices that stand in conflict with the values and the priorities of the American people.” It is going to be illuminating to see how this language is echoed by the candidates now seeking the Democratic nomination for president. So far, the main point being made by the front-runner, Senator Kerry, is that he is a warrior, who tangled with the enemy during Vietnam. Yet when Mr. Kerry stated that “The president clearly does not understand the economic, social and security challenges that our nation faces today,” perhaps he forgot the lessons of his youth, when his military service was bankrolled by a short budget that had a comparable impact on our economy. Warrior Kerry seems not to remember that deficits can be an index of how committed a nation is to its cause.

The appropriate evaluation of a deficit in wartime is the percentage it forms of a country’s gross domestic product. This way the cost can be effectively measured against the size of the current economy. According to the White House, the $521 billion peak deficit projected for 2004 is 4.5% of the GDP. That’s the exact same figure as the second year of the Gulf War, comparable to Vietnam War numbers, and a mere fragment of World War II percentages, which soared to 30.3%. Taking an effective deficit that we’ve faced before and comparing it to the billions in damages inherent in ignoring the growing menace of North Korea, Iran, and a destabilized Iraq, it doesn’t strike us that these numbers are “fiscal insanity,” to use Howard Dean’s words. Rather, they strike us as a commitment to security and liberty in the world — a commitment that the Democratic candidates, brave Mr. Kerry included, seem by their reactions not to share with the president.

The Bush budget adds up to a test of the Democrats as to whether they are serious about the war against the Islamic terrorists and those who would arm them, such as North Korea. It’s one thing to argue that America is unfit to fight a two- or three-front war, i.e. a world war against Islamic terror. It’s another to argue that it shouldn’t be fit to fight a three-front war. Mr. Bush clearly wants to make military preparedness a priority.

The Democrats yesterday were already blaming Mr. Bush for proposing to make tax cuts permanent in this wartime environment. But failing to make the tax cuts permanent would amount to a tax increase. That would surely deal the economy a setback just as the recovery is taking hold. Better to borrow in confidence that debts can be repaid after the terrorists are defeated.