The Editor was instrumental in establishing OIRA, having served as the Assistant Director of OMB including working for five consecutive presidential administrations.
He has been asked his views a number of times regarding proposals to reduce federal spending. Here is his response.
Although I spent the majority of my federal career in regulatory review, I started in the field of budget review. After a number of years I left budget review and moved to regulatory review.
Why, because I concluded It virtually impossible to eliminate yearly budget deficits. I arrived at this conclusion because I divided shareholders into two classes; giveth and taketh.
The giveth are those interested in receiving financial benefits from the USG and the taketh are those who loose assets as a result of regulations or taxes. I concluded that it is virtually impossible to control giveth programs but a very distinct possibility of controlling taketh programs because politicians love to give gifts but not to control spending.
Over the years I have made a number of posts on these views but recent hits on our website have increased by a substantial amount.
Here are a few of our recent posts.
Comment 1: Likely Irreversible Nose Dive in US Economy
Here is a reaction to our post which received a lot of attention:
