President Trump’s budget chief may be the first ever in that position who didn’t rip his hair out when Congress dubbed his work “dead on arrival” or when the administration’s own agency bosses shrugged at proposed cuts.
In fact, Mick Mulvaney, the Office of Management and Budget director, learned pretty early in the budget process that “the president’s budget is, at the end of the day, a messaging document.”
He had some help. First came Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, a top appropriator, who welcomed the new budget this way, according to Mulvaney: “He said, ‘Young man, your budget is no more dead on arrival than every other president’s budget I’ve seen.'”
And when he got a call from the Energy Secretary Rick Perry. Expecting to hear complaints about proposed cuts, the former Texas governor shrugged, “Oh, hell no, Mick. I know what an executive budget is for. It is for holding open the door and holding down papers in a high wind.”
Still, “it’s not a waste,” said Mulvaney, because now Congress “knows which programs we are interested in.”
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
