The Washington Post
February 3, 2002
By Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., Director of the Office of Management and Budget
“To the average citizen, shifting resources when priorities change makes simple common sense. When the new priority is the survival of Americans, the cause is even more obvious, a straightforward matter of battle stations vs. business-as-usual.
“But Washington is a capital overrun by vested interests whose livelihoods depend on extracting ever-increasing quantities of taxpayer dollars for their narrow causes. It is not clear that they will subordinate their interests even to the needs of wartime.”
“The budget debate ahead will measure our wisdom and our will to respond to this latest lethal threat to American lives and liberty. But it will also test our maturity as a democracy, our ability to put first things first… ”
Comment: The Bush administration has placed a great emphasis on testing. Can we pass the test of our maturity as a democracy by putting first things first? Or are we about to fail this one?