Kennedy to Democrats: ‘Regain Soul’ : Spending priorities: Senator urges party to support defense cuts to pay for domestic programs.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) called today for the Democratic Party to regain its soul by backing a five-year, 27% cut in defense spending with the money to pay for a wide range of performance-tested domestic programs.

Kennedy, one of the most liberal voices of the party, conceded that having lost five of the past six national elections, Democrats are adrift and in danger of losing all power unless the party reinvigorates itself and rediscovers its liberal principles.

In a speech at Georgetown University, Kennedy argued that a possible “peace dividend” from lessening Cold War tensions could give Democrats a unique opportunity to re-establish themselves by pushing for new domestic programs without having to ask for many new taxes.

Among the programs he outlined were national health insurance, which he has championed for years, a drastic expansion of the Head Start education program, a restructuring of the nation’s school system and a plan to use defense industries to improve the country’s transportation and communications systems.

“The Democratic Party can never regain the presidency, or ultimately keep its congressional power, by disguising or repudiating our own basic identity,” Kennedy said. “We are, both by history and belief, the carriers of principles and ideas best described as progressive, liberal, activist, concerned and ambitious for our country.”

“If as Democrats we continue to drift--if we run from our values and our enduring beliefs, we can be certain that the voters will not follow us,” Kennedy said, arguing that the party’s central problem “is the temptation to retreat from the very reasons we are Democrats, the very ground of our party’s being.”

Kennedy complained that with the President enjoying extraordinarily high popularity ratings, Democrats are giving too much ground and “almost conceding a second term to President Bush--or hoping against hope that he stumbles somewhere along the way.”

To regain the initiative, Kennedy suggested that the dramatic new push for domestic programs be paid by military cuts.

“This would free a minimum of $170 billion for other uses and it would still leave defense spending at the same level as in the post-Korea and post-Vietnam periods,” he said.

The money, Kennedy argued, should not go to cutting the federal deficit, but should be placed in what he called a “National Needs Trust Fund” and then doled out to domestic programs proven to work.

Kennedy conceded that in the past Democrats have too often supported programs that, while conceived with the best of intentions, were not effective.