Word: darman
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...most irresponsible idea of the 1990s," said Budget Director Richard Darman. "A charade!" harrumphed President George Bush. "Outrageous!" cried dozens of editorialists and labor groups. The object of that opprobrium was Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan's plan to reduce the Social Security tax. First proposed by the New York Democrat in December 1989, the bill was killed last October before it even reached the Senate floor. Today, however, the Social Security Tax Cut Act of 1991, an updated version of Moynihan's idea, is becoming one of the country's most hotly debated domestic policy issues...
...gulf war, defense spending should continue to decline; that domestic spending should rise only with inflation; and that mandatory entitlement programs are still too sacrosanct for deep reductions. All that's left to debate is how much should go to individual discretionary programs. Explains Robert Grady, a top Darman aide: "The amount of money spent is set, so what it comes down to is a question of priorities...
...most intriguing element in the budget is Darman's romance with means testing. By reducing federal handouts for middle- and upper-income Americans, Darman hopes to begin to wean them from their expensive -- and subsidized -- life-styles. Farmers who make more than $125,000 a year in outside income will be ineligible for federal commodity subsidies. The monthly Medicare premium of $31.80 will be tripled for seniors whose adjusted incomes exceed $125,000. Darman said the five new means tests, which would save $200 million next year and $3.7 billion through 1995, are a first step toward "a better focus...
...House knows that many Democrats will reflexively balk at the idea of asking seniors (or parents of kids who get but don't need subsidized school lunches) to pay more. House budget chairman Leon Panetta, a California Democrat, seemed to stumble into this trap last week when he warned Darman that the elderly will "raise hell" if the Medicare proposals stand. In political terms, it doesn't really matter whether the means tests find their way into law; for Bush and Darman, the readiness to propose them is all that counts...
...budget is an attempt to mollify the restive right, whose members are still steamed about the way Bush orphaned his "no new taxes" pledge last year. Darman met nearly a dozen times in recent weeks with House Republicans and included in the budget a number of items -- enterprise zones, incentives for tenant ownership of public housing -- that are dear to conservative hearts. But Administration officials admit privately that some of these, such as Bush's inevitable pitch for lower capital-gains taxes, are included simply to keep the right quiet. Said a senior Administration official: "We're trying to fool...