ABSTRACT
Political leaders are concerned less with the social, economic or international implications of a course of action they advocate than with the program's potential for enhancing their own political standing and undermining that of their political opponents. The curtailment of the benefits undermined the political basis of the loyalty that many middle-income individuals had shown to the Democrats. In the decades following the New Deal, the Democrats established a solid political base in the social service and regulatory agencies of the domestic state. Republican tax policies have also served to divide a politically important middle-class group—college educated professionals—that had given substantial support to the Democrats during the 1960s and 1970s. The Republicans have sought to divide the new class by shifting the political debate to the issues of tax and budget cuts. The Republicans have attacked urban political machines and national and municipal service bureaucracies mainly through domestic spending reductions.
