Word: darman
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Despite his sometimes shirty demeanor, Richard Darman, George Bush's Budget Director, is known around the White House as an accomplished comedian. After all, a knack for cutting up goes naturally with the job; last year when Bush asked for the impossible -- a budget that lowered the deficit without raising taxes -- Darman responded with a 15-page essay rife with references to Wonderland, Pac-Man and Cookie Monster. Given the cooked books that were expected of him, humor was Darman's best defense...
This year silly stratagems have been set aside. Darman's budget for 1992 is a more sober reflection of the nation's fiscal health than most budgets of the past decade. Its economic assumptions, with some exceptions, are unusually flinty eyed. Its priorities, if not always laudable, are clear. And for Bush and Darman, both of whom were wounded in last fall's budget fight, it is a smooth political recovery act that last week met with generally favorable reviews from both right and left...
...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...