WASHINGTON — This is a Milius moment, and the tragedy is that we no longer have Peter Milius to walk us through it.
Milius, a reporter, editor and, most recently, editorial writer at The Washington Post, died much too young on Jan. 10, just as the latest round of the budget debate, which he had no peer at deciphering, was getting under way.
At the memorial service, where he was sent off to the sound of the Cajun music he loved and played (sort of) on his accordion, the real domestic policy experts of Washington — the anonymous staff people Milius affectionately dubbed "skunks" for their willingness to speak truth to power — turned out in force to honor a journalist who was uniquely thorough in cutting through partisan rhetoric to find reality.
Gene Sperling, who ran the economic policy shop in the Clinton White House, told me that "when Peter called, there was always an argument about who would call him back. No one wanted the assignment, because he knew too much."
Milius was at his best in decoding budgets; and once again, after a few years’ blessed surcease, we face a debate about federal deficits. The morning after the Milius memorial, Mitch Daniels, the current director of the Office of Management and Budget, said he welcomed "an honest debate" about the fiscal plan President Bush will submit early next month.
Embarrassingly for Republicans, that budget will confirm that the surpluses built up during the Clinton administration have disappeared. To divert attention, Republicans, including Daniels, are charging that when Democrats advocate suspending some or all of the future tax cuts promised in the bill President Bush lobbied through Congress last year, they are calling for "a tax increase."
The "tax increase" charge is politically useful; Republicans would love to make that the issue in next November’s election. As Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy remarked with a smile at the National Press Club, following a speech in which he called for freezing $350 billion of promised tax relief for high-income individuals, "It is a standard (Washington) tactic to take someone’s proposal, misstate it, and then disagree with it. It’s very effective. I’ve used it myself." But Milius would scorn it, as he would the equally false Democratic claim that Bush’s tax cut caused or deepened the current recession.
Daniels readily conceded to reporters that the 10-year projections of huge budget surpluses, on which the Bush administration relied to sell its $1.3-trillion tax cut last year, were wildly in error. The new budget, he said, will caution us never to rely on such distant forecasts.
That sounds like an important concession — but in fact, the Bush people always knew their tax cut was built on thin air. As I reported last February, when the proposal was still new, Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill "used a barnyard epithet" during an interview to dismiss any claim by anyone to be able to predict the course of the economy or the state of the budget 10 years in advance. But no one in the administration wanted to tell Bush the supposed surpluses might not be there. Now, recession, war and terrorism have knocked the budget into deficit, and no one knows how long it will remain there. Daniels argued that Congress will have "many opportunities" in coming years to suspend those promised tax cuts if it should be necessary. But beginning remedial action this year would, he said, be a mistake.
Milius would scoff. If you admit you’ve made an error, a gross miscalculation, why not fix it?
But also he would point out some things about the Kennedy proposal: Far from being a radical suggestion, it would leave intact about three-quarters of the promised tax cuts. It would not affect any tax reductions scheduled to take effect until 2004 or later. That means it would not likely change the short-term course of the economy and it wouldn’t help stem the budgetary red ink this year or next.
Second, as Daniels pointed out, the senator’s proposal is not even designed with the budget in mind. Kennedy’s real argument is that spending $350 billion more on such things as early childhood education and prescription drug benefits (which would likely cost much more) is better than giving that much money back to people who have annual incomes of more than $130,000 or estates of more than $4 million.
The Republicans and Democrats have concocted their messages for the coming campaign. But Peter Milius would say: That’s not the same as an honest debate.
David Broder can be reached at The Washington Post Writers Group, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, DC 20071-9200.
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