By Charles Babington Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, March 1, 2001; Page C01
For a time yesterday, it seemed that President Bush's top three budget advisers had stumbled into an exotic, shadowy land -- a place where increases are "cuts," failed programs never die, and pesky people ask the same question over and over. And over.
It was the annual briefing on the federal budget before the Washington press corps, held in a plain auditorium in the Old Executive Office Building. This year's event, however, became more a culture clash than a statistical drone, as the new administration's fiscal titans took aim at eight years of Democratic traditions and a crowd of journalists ready to pounce on any campaign backpedaling or fuzzy math.
Soon after White House budget director Mitch Daniels finished his opening remarks, a reporter set the tone. "Could you identify what are some of the most significant cuts that you've made in this budget," he asked, "and give your justification for making them?"
"I'm only laughing because in a budget that's going to grow by $103 billion," Daniels said. ". . . It's a little hard to think in the terms of, you know, pain, suffering and cuts."
"I know," the reporter replied evenly. "But try."
"Yeah?" Daniels said. "Well, we'll get you all weaned off of this strange fixation you have, at some point." And for the next 30 minutes, he and his colleagues -- Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and chief White House economics adviser Larry Lindsey -- did their best: lecturing the press corps, ridiculing their critics and portraying the federal government as something of a necessary nuisance at odds with "the people."
It has been eight years since Republicans faced their special quandary: taking control of a government they've often depicted as more foe than friend. Few of their critics missed the irony that Bush's biggest spending increase will go to the Education Department, which the Republican Party targeted for elimination only four years ago.
There was much talk yesterday of "this town," as if federal Washington's name shouldn't be spoken. "I discovered that you don't have a lemon law for government programs in this town," Daniels said, decrying the difficulty of eliminating dubious or unneeded agencies.
"It's a convention in this town," O'Neill said, that "we talk about tax cuts . . . as though the government owned the money."
Talk of taxes ignited the day's longest, testiest dialogue. It started when a journalist asked about an analysis, by the liberal Citizens for Tax Justice, concluding that the nation's richest 1 percent of taxpayers would get 45 percent of Bush's proposed tax cut.
"It's a nonsense set of statistics," O'Neill retorted.
Well, another reporter said, congressional Democrats offer essentially the same analysis. What about them?
Lindsey stepped to the mike. The administration's analysis, he said, came from the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, which didn't single out the wealthiest one-hundredth. "So I don't have the answer for your 1 percent," he said.
Surely, a reporter insisted, the administration could crank out statistics "that would refute their claim."
O'Neill took a swing. "I tell you what," he said. "If one of you, or they, could provide us with their distribution table and all of their assumptions, I would be happy to."
The reporters became dry and direct. "What percentage of the tax cut goes to the wealthiest 1 percent?" one demanded.
"As plans move forward on the Hill," Daniels said "those [detailed] distribution tables will accompany, I'm sure."
A staffer tried to end the briefing, calling out, "One more question." But now it was O'Neill, not the press, with his back up.
Calling himself "a recent fugitive from the private sector" (where he earned $56.4 million last year from Alcoa, the company reported), O'Neill said, "I guess I've always thought that the money that came to Washington belonged to the people who sent it until our elected representatives decide that it's needed for some agreed public purposes."
Debate should occur, he said, "outside of the implicit notion that once the money arrives here, it belongs to the government, whatever that is -- not of 'We the people,' but some shadowy presence that isn't ours by representation."
With that, O'Neill, Lindsey and Daniels returned to their offices at the heart of a sprawling government their team will rule for at least four years.
© 2001 The Washington Post Company