Bermuda triangle. (Competing Interests).

After years of winking at the practice, Congress is suddenly up in arms about companies moving their headquarters to Bermuda to avoid taxes. In the House and Senate, legislators have introduced laws that would forbid CEOs from booking first-class passage to the nearest tropical tax shelter.

While many reasons have been put forth to explain the suddenly strict scrutiny, few ring true.

Some of the companies seeking Caribbean havens have been involved in unsavory shenanigans, reinforcing the old perception of the islands as a pirates' hideout. But many of those who have set sail for the little slice of England in the western Atlantic, like Accenture or Ingersoll-Rand, have impeccable records, and continue to maintain them after moving.

Some erstwhile Bermuda cruisers have courted controversy by misplaying their move. The Stanley Works, which is still based in New Britain, Conn., botched its shareholder vote to approve the move, while news reports about the bonus CEO John Trani stood to gain from reincorporation raised hackles. Still, Stanley is small fry in the realm of corporate governance and executive compensation fiascos.

With the war on terrorism still afoot, the charge of desertion resonates in a way it probably hasn't in a generation. Critics of Stanley Works, for example, noted that Benedict Arnold, that archetypal traitor, also fled from Connecticut to Bermuda during wartime. But it's not like Stanley is giving aid and comfort to the Taliban.

There's another, more convincing, explanation for the Beltway's sudden antipathy to corporate relocation. In the past few months, congressional leaders of both stripes have realized they need the $30 million that Stanley would have saved, and the billions that other companies could theoretically save, by planting a corporate flag in the lush soil of Bermuda. Our representatives need the cash for national security. They need it even more for job security.

In the roaring late '90s, tax revenues gushed into Washington. President Clinton and the Republican Congress found they could reduce debt, slash capital gains taxes and report massive surpluses even while boosting funds for popular programs. In 2001, Congress projected a $5.6 trillion surplus over the next 10 years.

But since then, the nation's budget front has been gloomy. Last year's tax cut, the slowing economy, the September 11 attacks and sharp declines in government revenues have hit the federal balance sheet hard. In April 2002, revenues were down a shocking 28.5 percent from the year before. For the first 10 months of this fiscal year, through July, overall revenues were down 10.4 percent.

Outlays, meanwhile, were up 8.6 percent. The emergency spending on defense, homeland security and the reconstruction of New York accounts for only a portion of the increase. If current trends continue, the shortfall this year could approach $200 billion.

Next year, the picture looks even worse. Congress has passed a mammoth, 10-year, $180 billion farm bill, larded homeland security measures with pork--one homeland defense bill included funds for the Smithsonian to reorganize its bug and frog collection -- and is likely to spend more on defense.

Yet anyone who suggests delaying or halting the phase-in of last year's individual tax cut, as some Democrats have done, faces the toxic charge that he or she supports raising taxes.

Suddenly, politically popular surpluses have turned into politically poisonous deficits -- and turned Washington upside down. Democrats who opposed budget-balancing measures in the '90s are now scolding the Republican-controlled House and White House for their spendthrift ways. Even conservative Republicans are growing antsy at the new spending and the return of dreaded deficits.

That's why Washington will guard zealously all existing sources of income, especially those provided by people or institutions who are politically unpopular--in other words, corporations and CEOs.

Booking a cruise to Bermuda in the fall is always a dicey proposition. It's hurricane season, after all. But this fall CEOs seeking to chart a course for Hamilton have another reason to beware: It's campaign season. And in this one, the winds blowing out of a revenue-parched Washington may prove dangerous.

Daniel Gross, who writes the "Moneybox" column for Slate, studies the links between Washington and Wall Street. Send comments to [e-mail].