News analysis: 30 years of deficit talk, but little to show for it

Is it really different this time?

That's what Republican political strategists are asking as party leaders and presidential prospects keep raising the bar in their quest to curb government deficits. As thrilling as that process feels for Tea Party members and conservative intellectuals, its merit as an electoral formula remains unproven at best.

Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Budget Committee, set the tone when he warned of fiscal catastrophe in his response to President Barack Obama's State of the Union address. Govs. Mitch Daniels of Indiana and Chris Christie of New Jersey have grown progressively more blunt in calling for big changes to Medicare and Social Security.

Now Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin has seized the spotlight with his showdown with state workers — a made-for-cable spectacle at the dawning of a new presidential race that has galvanized Republican budget hawks and unions allied with Democrats.

"That's how the race is going to evolve," said Scott Reed, who managed Sen. Bob Dole's campaign for the White House in 1996. "It's going to be the serious and the unserious."

That increases pressure on Republican presidential contenders to match bracing specifics from the likes of Christie, who last week unequivocally embraced an increase in the Social Security retirement age. But shadowing such discussions are the setbacks that befell President Ronald Reagan, former Speaker Newt Gingrich and President George W. Bush when they attempted similar bold moves.

It is one thing to acknowledge that the entitlement programs Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid drive the nation's long-term deficit. It is another to win a national election while pledging to scale them back.

"It's not the third rail," cautioned Ken Khachigian, a speechwriter for Reagan, "until you touch it."

Lessons of 1980

Every presidential campaign has its own distinct backdrop. Four years ago, the contest began after midterm elections that were dominated by the Iraq War.

In early 1999, the economy was booming and the federal government had just recorded its first budget surplus in three decades. George W. Bush, then governor of Texas, assumed the good times would continue in calling for "prosperity with a purpose."

In early 2011, high unemployment and enormous budget deficits have Republicans warning of national decline, as they did during Jimmy Carter's presidency.