Roll Out

It is the first full week of February, a temperate week in Washington, and Monday brought one of the holiest rituals in the Democracy- the ”Roll Out” of the President’s Budget for Fiscal 2006.

If you want to imagine the process, think of it this way: a gigantic horse is wheeled up in front of the Capitol, and a small army of men and women run away and some curious Congressmen wander out to look at what had been left for them. 

I get in trouble with my vast audience when I write about the budget. People say the budget is dry, and boring. When I start to wax enthusiastic about planning assumptions and Program Objectives they tell me to relax and talk about something else. It just isn’t that interesting.

It is Fat Tuesday, and they are throwing beads and worse in New Orleans. I wish I was there. I could write about the buzzards circling over the Vatican, the Holy Father frail and almost transparent. I could write about the confirmation of Mr. Chertoff at the Department of Homeland Security, or how the French are dealing with the prospect of Mr. Bush still being in office, but who cares?

I confess the Budget fascinates me. It is sexy, in the way that a big river of money can be, and there are power struggles and back-stabbing along the way that you don’t see in the finished product.

I used to run a staff that produced a tiny slice of the Budget, a few billion dollars worth, and that was pretty tough business. Mind numbing detail, and endless emotional meetings to bring it together to meet the assumptions of the next layer up on the budget hierarchy.

So my hat is off to Josh Bolten this week. He sits at the top of the pinnacle. He is Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. He has a close relationship with the President, and is an outspoken supporter of Social Security and tax reform. He is responsible for putting the whole $2.57 trillion dollar thing together, wiring the assumptions, forecasting inflation, claiming some numbers are good and others not, then gently simmering the books until the budget is done, just so.

They hauled big cartons full of the Budget up to the Hill yesterday and handed out copies to the Members and Staff. Some of the Members sniffed that the Budget is dead on arrival, but that just gives the Congress a more creative place to start from. Now they get to start putting money back where they want it, the other half of the process that will go on until Fall.

Josh is not one of those people whose face you would remember. He looks grave, with pale eyes distant behind silver wire-rimmed glasses. His hair is salt-and-pepper, though he bears a disquieting resemblance to the guy who plays the speechwriter on the West Wing. Maybe it is one of those art-imitates-life things.

Josh was sworn in as OMB in 2003. His credentials for doing this come from being a Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, and before that, the same position for the Campaign.

In real life, during the Clinton years, he was Executive Director for Government Affairs at Goldman Sachs International in London. He is a confirmed Government weenie. He was in the first Bush administration in the White House and the office of the US Trade Representative. He was a Senate staffer before that, and a known attorney.

He is fifty years of age, give or take a couple, and is widely assumed to be one of the Administration Grown Ups. But if you look at the budget, you can see that he is a man of subtle humor, and infinite jest.

He presides over a process that starts with a ”top line.” That is the $2.57 trillion number. You would think that the budget is a bottom-up process, but it doesn’t work that way. They start with a number, and then jam it down on the government. What doesn’t fit swells out the sides and then gets lopped off.

The budget starts with policy. In this case, the President vows to cut the deficit in half by some year in the distant future. It is then up to Josh to make everything fit in a package that seems to do that.

The fact that it will not be enacted that way is irrelevant. This is a process deal, after all, and the Administration can point a finger at Congress if they don’t enact the Budget as submitted.

So, spending limits that won’t happen are included, and expenses that are sure to be incurred are omitted. That is the key to making the Budget seem to balance, the assumptions that determine which numbers are in, and which ones are out.

Josh has assumed that all discretionary spending outside of military and domestic security will be frozen for the next five years. He has omitted the cost of next year’s operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have been running at more than $5 billion a month.

Josh has also assumed that borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars to start up private investment accounts in Social Security are not actual expenditures, and that cutting the Alternative Minimum Tax won’t cost the Treasury additional dollars.

Assumptions are everything. I assume that I am going to go to work this morning, and I assume that traffic on the 14 th Street Bridge is going to be awful. But I am going to further assume a leisurely lunch, an early departure, and a lavish pension.

But Josh and I are not the only people with assumptions. The people who are running my company are assuming a 50% growth for our division next year. They have produced the numbers to prove it.

Josh Bolton would probably give a sly smile if he compared notes. The difference is that next year will come pretty soon for us, and if we cannot make the assumptions, we will all get canned.

Josh has four more years.

Who says this stuff isn’t interesting. Hello? Are you awake? C’mon, it’s Fat Tuesday! Cherchez les bontemps roulez!

Copyright 2005 Vic Socotra

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