A public opinion survey shows Washington leaders are lagging behind the public's common-sense approach to fiscal responsibility and the war on terrorism.

A year-end national survey showed that the American people are, as usual, ahead of their supposed "leaders" in forming serious opinions on some of the most important challenges the country will face in the new year and beyond. Washington politicians might at least use the survey results as impetus for staking themselves out to common-sense positions they don't have the courage to take on their own.

Take federal budget policy, for example. The predictable political demagoguery on the issue has become tiresome -- as well a threat to the nation's economic well-being. Republicans, from President Bush down, typically talk only of additional tax cuts, even though the economic conditions that originally spurred the Bush tax cuts have changed drastically. The White House and congressional Republicans intend to make another round of tax cuts the centerpiece of their 2003 legislative agenda. For their part, Washington Democrats know that the long-term, regressive tax cuts already pushed through by the Bush administration unfairly favor the very rich while dooming the country to a new era of massive budget deficits -- but most of them are deathly afraid of saying so out loud.

Yet two-thirds of the voters polled in the national survey commissioned by the Associated Press, including a majority of Republican voters, said it is prudent to hold off on future tax cuts as a way of avoiding even deeper deficits. The responses suggest that public officials who hold out for fiscal responsibility need not fear a political backlash if they explain themselves coherently.

The unreality in Washington applies to spending as well as taxes. Budget constraints didn't prevent the White House and Congress from approving bloated new agriculture subsidies. The changing priorities of the war on terror haven't prevented Washington from committing tens of billions of dollars to obsolete weapons programs that siphon money from programs that could protect the nation from modern threats.

Unlike the largely well-to-do political class in Washington, millions of American voters already have felt the direct impact of difficult economic conditions. Forty-four percent of respondents said recent financial news has caused them to become more cautious about spending money. The percentage of Washington politicians who have become more cautious about spending taxpayers' money is closer to zero.

Finally, the survey showed that the public has a clear-eyed view of our priorities in the war against terrorism. Almost 60 percent of respondents said the al-Qaida terrorist network poses a greater threat than Iraq. (The survey was completed before the nuclear crisis in North Korea began to escalate.) Most also expressed concern that a war against Iraq would increase the threat of terrorist attacks within the United States.

Most Americans are fully prepared to support a war against Iraq if Washington leaders commit the nation to it. However, the survey results suggest that much of the public is still waiting for the government to make a more satisfactory explanation of our priorities in the war against terrorism, and to offer a fuller view of the costs and risks of war.

True leaders galvanize public opinion rather than blindly following it. Yet these survey results suggest that too many of our public officials are pandering to a base and distorted view of public opinion. Leadership on long-term issues such as waging the war on terrorism and reforming Social Security and Medicare will occasionally require making difficult choices that risk public backlash. The recent Associated Press survey suggests that the public is more understanding of those difficult choices than politicians sometimes fear.

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