Ruling on OMB Analysts
Your editorial (“Comeuppance for Budget Bullies,” Feb. 25) described how the U.S. Supreme Court ruled recently that the President’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) cannot use “paper-work reduction” as an excuse to thwart a law requiring employers to warn their employees of hazards in the workplace from dangerous chemicals.
You are guilty of taking a cheap, simplistic shot at the entire institution because of your disagreement with the policy. If you had liked the policy you would be praising OMB for policing a maverick agency. If there were no OMB you would criticize the Administration for lack of program coordination and budgetary control.
Your editorial conveys an impression that the OMB is simply a bunch of storm troopers for the President and operates without regard for the law of the land. I assure you that if that is so it is a fairly recent development. I was in the statistical policy division of OMB during the 1970s, with responsibilities for economic statistics. My copies of our organic laws, the Federal Reports Act of 1942 and the Budget and Accounting Procedures Act, were on my desk at all times, underlined and dogeared from constant reference.
Much of what OMB has done in the paper-work area has benefited the public. The Federal Reports Act demanded that the government not impose “unnecessary reporting burden” on the public. (Our authority did not extend to the income tax forms, unfortunately.) The operative word was “unnecessary,” since we and most of the responsible reporting public understood the government’s need for information of all kinds.
We did not permit the reporting burden issue to handcuff a reasonable or mandated program, no matter how controversial it was. Under the wise guidance of people like Roye Lowry, Paul Krueger, Milton Moss, Margaret Martin, Julius Shiskin and Joseph Duncan in my day (and others before them), we cleared forms which were opposed by many business including the FTC’s line of business form and President Nixon’s price and wage control regulatory forms.
Under the Budget and Accounting Procedures Act we prepared statistical budgets and tried to make government information more accurate, internally consistent, timely and credible. We often pushed within OMB for more money to enhance statistical programs.
Your editorial talks about “dancing in the corridors” of the agencies because of the “comeuppance of a town bully.” Well, it is easy to sit back here and portray OMB as the bad guy doing the President’s dirty work. In fact, when I was there (1970-1976) OMB was about 800 highly talented and hard-working professionals who quickly impressed each new director.
OMB has power of persuasion as well as of budget review and coordination under law. The Times must know that, in real life, agencies are not powerless in the face of OMB. They get their way often by going over OMB’s head to the President or to Congress. For instance, statistical agencies have their own committees on the Hill, and OMB is not so powerful if they “go to the mat.” The Times, of all papers, should resist the urge to use simplistic notions of “good” or “bad,” no matter how helpful they are in making a point.
DAVID T. HULETT
Santa Monica