Now Dick Darman’s gone, but we’re the ones burning in deficit hell

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	Now Dick Darman’s gone, but we’re the ones burning in deficit hell Richard Darman was the Budget Director under President George H.W. Bush (not to be confused with the current occupant of the White House), and as such he was the chief architect of the landmark budget deal of 1990. But Darman long since had departed the public stage in Washington, and so his recent passing due to leukemia at the age of 64 was little noted. Landmark? Well, the budget deal he engineered included some tax increases, so it cost Bush the Elder his presidency. And it paved the way for the balancing of the federal budget a few years later under Bush the Elder’s successor. So, yeah, landmark. Still, I might have passed right by Darman’s obituary in the Wall Street Journal myself, except for a related news item that serendipity had caused to be placed just a few pages away. The Journal reported, apropos of an article about presidential candidate Mitt Romney, that eleven percent of Republicans want the next president to focus his or her efforts first and foremost on tax cuts. Eleven percent. Meanwhile, 35 percent want the next president to focus on cutting spending and balancing the budget. Half again as many as think Iraq and terrorism is the main issue. And, yes, more than three times as many as those who are pining away for the next round of tax cuts. Where is Richard Darman when you need him? Oh, right. He’s dead. Of course, Darman had been Dead Man Walking in Washington for some time. If you look up “You’ll Never Work in This Town Again” on Wikipedia, I think you’ll see Darman’s picture. Budget deficits had spiraled out of control during the 1980s, and by the time Bush the Elder took office there was a terrible public clamor to do something about it. But Bush had served two terms as vice president under Ronald Reagan, and had seen first-hand what happened to Walter Mondale in 1984 after he had announced that he would raise taxes. Which is to say, Mondale won less than 41 percent of the popular vote and carried just one state—his native Minnesota. So, during the 1988 presidential campaign, Bush followed Reagan’s lead and famously announced, “Read my lips—no new taxes.” Still, when Darman brought him the proposed 1990 budget, it was a thing of such beauty that Bush could not resist it. The rest, as they say, is history. Bush lost. Clinton balanced the budget. And Darman earned “the lasting enmity of Republican conservatives and effectively banished him from government for the remainder of his career,” the Journal reported. But wait! Clinton balanced the budget? Some say, no, it was Reagan. Well, unless they mean to say that Reagan presided over an accumulation of deficits and debt so alarming that he caused others to take action, I don’t know what they could possibly be referring to. So, if you want to argue that it wasn’t Clinton made little green apples, then at least mention Darman and you’ll have a leg to stand on. It was Darman, after all, who proposed “pay as you go” rules, which required Congress to offset tax cuts or spending increases with corresponding spending cuts. He also proposed a ceiling on annual appropriations which, like “pay as you go,” remained in effect until the second Bush administration. So, now, it’s 2008. The American people again are demanding spending restraint and deficit reduction. And Mitt Romney, the successful CEO (just ask him) or “the guy who laid you off” (according to Mike Huckabee) is positioning himself as the Republican’s new economic guru. And Romney wants “to cut wasteful spending in Washington.” For instance…. Oh, wait, there’s no for instance—not a single spending cut has actually been proposed by Romney so far. He just wants “to cut wasteful spending in Washington.” Well, so do I, and so do you, and we’re probably prepared to do more about it than he is. The problem being that there is no wasteful spending to cut in Washington. Every nickel has a constituency. But here’s a for instance: Romney’s economic stimulus proposal was for $233 billion, compared to the second Bush’s meager $145 billion proposal. Romney also promised Michiganders a $20 billion energy research/auto industry bailout. And he promised seniors in Florida a permanent phase-out of payroll taxes for seniors, and opposed any increase in Social Security taxes. So the Republicans’ new, self-styled economic guru, the man who wants “to cut wasteful spending in Washington,” can come up with plenty of new spending, for instance, but no specific spending cuts, for instance. I dunno. If Richard Darman were still here, I can imagine him advising, “Read my lips. No new spending without new revenues.” Marc Hugunin lives in the city of Grant.