(4 of 5)
The OMB director's job can be a post of unequaled power in shaping economic policy, or it can be relegated to little more than government bookkeeping, massaging the numbers so they justify decisions made elsewhere. George Bush's budget director, the brilliant and calculating Richard Darman, managed to commandeer virtually the entire domestic agenda from his post in the Old Executive Office Building. "Some people come to Washington to take over a department and don't know that they can't do much without OMB's approval," Darman once observed. "But they learn--some more painfully than others." Leon Panetta, Clinton's first budget director, wielded similar clout by virtue of his mastery of fiscal arcana, his understanding of Capitol Hill and his rapport with Clinton. When Panetta was elevated to chief of staff, however, his replacement, Alice Rivlin, lacked the political acumen to translate her economic credentials into real sway. She was not even invited to the negotiations with G.O.P. congressional leaders during last winter's government shutdown.
Panetta's departure leaves an enormous vacuum, and Raines appears eager to take advantage of it. In a White House that churns out micro-initiatives every day, Raines has squelched the Administration's habit of making such announcements without checking whether OMB has sanctioned a plan to pay for them with cuts elsewhere. This month he stepped in to require a more thorough vetting of measures that would tighten food-safety regulations. "There were more people running around with their own little pet projects," says White House spokesman Michael McCurry. "Raines has reined it in."
Raines also has no patience for Washington policyspeak, or political euphemism. He cares little whether his Medicare plan is referred to as a cut or by the kinder formulation, "restraining growth," that the Republicans insisted on last year. His ideas go well beyond making the numbers balance. Until now the U.S. government's relationship with the troubled District of Columbia had been a squabble over how large the federal subsidy should be. Last month Raines unveiled a bailout plan that would totally transform the contract between the two, opening a debate that all sides agree was long overdue.
Within the Administration, Raines' first budget has produced a fair share of acrimony. For starters Clinton has for the first time committed himself to balance, with numbers credible enough to stand up to scrutiny on Capitol Hill but big enough to accommodate the promises he made during the last campaign. Meanwhile, a cohort of departing Cabinet secretaries, whose relationships with Clinton were more deeply rooted than the new OMB director's, seized their final chance to make demands. Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros, for example, facing $1 billion in new low-income-housing cuts, lamented in a memo to Raines that found its way to the Wall Street Journal, "Now is not the time to change course. I believe this is a serious mistake."