‘Windbags and Delinquents’ Voted Down Budget Pact, Stockman Says

Former Budget Director David A. Stockman said today that the federal budget deficit reduction package was voted down by “windbags and juvenile delinquents.”

Stockman, calling the 254-179 vote an “appalling tragedy,” said the deal reached at the budget summit was “a masterpiece of political compromise.”

The former congressman served as President Ronald Reagan’s director of the Office of Management and Budget from 1981 to ’85. He now is an investment banker, a general partner with the Blackstone Group.

Stockman was interviewed on ABC’s “Good Morning America” program.

Asked what went wrong Thursday night, Stockman replied:

“At the end of the day, this wasn’t a division between Republicans and Democrats or liberals and conservatives. It was really a division between those in Congress who have finally decided to face the facts of life, take the heat and behave like adults, and those who believe they can continue to act like windbags and juvenile delinquents.”

He said the nation has been “avoiding this problem for a decade. In a sense, the American government has been on a juvenile lark. We’ve built up $2 trillion in debt in 10 years. We have hocked the country deeply to foreigners.”