If you want a glimpse of where the Democratic Party is headed, mark the speech delivered Monday in Michigan by Senator Lieberman. The Connecticut Democrat, who was Vice President Gore’s running mate and is maneuvering for the Democratic nomination in 2004, spoke at the Economic Club of Detroit. The New York Times didn’t cover it, but the speech got lots of play in the Post newspaper in Washington. The key point is that the senator has looked at the precarious state of the current economy and has decided that we have cut taxes too much.

What he wants to do is “postpone the most expensive and least progressive parts of the Bush tax cut that go into effect in 2004, 2006 and thereafter.” He goes on to label as irresponsible the additional tax cuts for which the president is pressing. He opposes making the temporary tax cuts permanent. He wants to postpone the personal exemption and itemized deduction provisions that would provide individuals some relief. He wants to abandon the idea of repealing the estate tax and, instead, just fiddle with the rates and exemptions. He proposes putting off the reduction in the top marginal rates that would take place in 2004 and 2006, when it would be brought down to 33%.

It was precisely the reduction of top marginal rates that was at the core of the Reagan revolution and that under girds not only the growth but also the revenue boom in the latter years of the 20th century. The notion that it was the tax increases and budget balancing of the “Democratic Congress” that triggered the growth of the 1990s is arch revisionism. In fact the boom of the 1990s didn’t take off until the defeat of Hillary Clinton’s campaign to nationalize health care and the decision of the voters to revoke the Democratic Party’s hold on Congress and to hand control not only of the Senate but the House to the Republicans. That’s when the growth exploded.

The significance of Mr. Lieberman’s speech lies in the fact that the Nutmeg Democrat is the best that the Democratic Party has to offer. Yet the role he seems to be serving is that of a right wing on a big bird that is flapping ever downward and to the left. Call it an albatross. If we have learned anything from the last generation it is that what brings revenues is growth and that what brings growth is tax cuts. Conceivably there comes a time when there is no room for tax cuts. But we are at a moment in American history when the share of the economy being claimed by government through taxation is at a nearly historic high.