WASHINGTON INSIGHT

SAID WHAT? At a meeting of the Senate Budget Committee, Chairman Jim Sasser (D-Tenn.) crowed that the GOP mayor of Knoxville, Tenn., Victor Ashe, had backed the President’s public works spending plan. To which Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.), who considers the plan wasteful, snapped: “Does pimping have no limits? And you tell him I said that.” A Gramm aide, calling Ashe an “old, dear friend” of the senator, said a bit tongue-in-cheek that Gramm was “complimenting the mayor’s entrepreneurial spirit. He understands that mayors, regardless of party, are hired in part to gather as many federal bucks as possible.”