He Had a Word for It

In his 4 1/2 years as director of President Reagan’s Office of Management and Budget, David A. Stockman has demonstrated a penchant for challenging the conventional wisdom, assailing political sacred cows and sometimes contradicting his own President’s policies.

Here are some of Stockman’s more notable pronouncements, along with the furor that followed them:

December, 1981

Interview in the Atlantic Monthly on the tax and budget cuts of Reagan’s first year:

“It’s kind of hard to sell ‘trickle down,’ so the supply-side formula was the only way to get a tax policy that was really ‘trickle down.’ Supply side is ‘trickle-down’ theory.”

“Kemp-Roth was always a Trojan horse to bring down the top rate”--a reference to the Kemp-Roth tax cut bill, which included rate cuts for all tax brackets but reduced the top rate from 70% all the way to 50%.

“None of us really understands what’s going on with these (budget) numbers. . . . People are getting from A to B and it’s not clear how they are getting there.”

In response, White House spokesman Larry Speakes said that Reagan expressed his “grave concern and disappointment” but declined Stockman’s offer to resign. Stockman, after lunch with Reagan, said: “I grew up on a farm, and my visit to the Oval Office for lunch with the President was more in the nature of a visit to the woodshed after supper.”

April 18, 1983

Budget briefing book for the Cabinet, leaked to the press:

“Powerful stalemating forces (are) dug in (so that) almost none of the (Administration’s) huge policy savings can be achieved without congressional-Administration agreement.

“(Under such a) stalemate scenario, deficits would be stuck at $200 billion per year as far as the eye can see, the national debt would expand by $660 billion over 1983-1985 and $1.3 trillion over 1983-1988 (and) economic recovery would be eventually aborted--possibly within (the) next two years.”

Publicly, the Administration continued to insist only that deficits would continue to decline under Reagan’s policies.

January, 1984

Interview with Fortune magazine:

“A lot of dreamers, including in the Administration,” believe still more social programs can be cut from the budget. “You are now at the point where you are reaching the legislative hard core of the budget. The budget system is not the problem. The problem is that this democracy is somewhat ambivalent about what it wants. It wants low taxes and substantial public spending.”

The White House declined to comment officially, but unnamed aides were quoted as saying: “Was he on his way to the woodshed when he said this?”