It's not as if Bush ahd anything to do with his budget proposal:

By Glenn Kessler and Dana Milbank,br> Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, March 1, 2001; Page A01

The budget blueprint issued by the White House yesterday was developed like many other things in the young Bush administration: by a small group of powerful advisers, supervised by Vice President Cheney, and with little hands-on involvement of the president.

The group, called a "budget review board," consisted of Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill, Office of Management and Budget Director Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., economic adviser Lawrence B. Lindsey, Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. and Cheney, who served as chairman.

The review board, generally meeting in Card's office or in the Roosevelt Room, first set a target for how much the budget should grow next year, according to participants -- a 4 percent increase. It then decided on funding for the various Cabinet agencies, based on the agencies' bargaining with OMB. The board then held a meeting a week ago Tuesday to act as an "appellate court," as Daniels put it, for agencies that objected to their budget allocation from OMB.

Bush advisers stress that the board members kept President Bush informed of their decisions and were operating within the guidelines he had given them. In that sense, the budget-setting process, arguably the most important matter that will be undertaken during Bush's first year in office, confirms earlier impressions of his leadership style. He sets broad parameters and goals, hires capable lieutenants, and gives them wide latitude and authority, say those who know him.

The Bush White House's budget process represents a radical departure from the system used in the Clinton White House, in which President Bill Clinton, at least early in his administration, involved himself in almost every line of the budget and allowed a more freewheeling process.

The review board structure also underscores another truism about the Bush administration: White House aides' dominance over domestic Cabinet agencies. The board heard objections from Cabinet agencies and then decided whether OMB's judgment was correct. "This court does not print its opinions, but my score was pretty good," Daniels said.

Cabinet secretaries had the right to appeal to the president himself, but the OMB director said none did.

One probable reason for the lack of appeals to Bush was the firepower of the board's members -- particularly of Cheney, who played a role similar to the one President Clinton did over the last eight years. "If the agency felt the vice president, the treasury secretary, the chief of staff and the assistant to the president for economic policy were not making an appropriate decision, they could appeal to the president," Lindsey said. "I'm not aware of any that did."

Lindsey said he did not recall the board meeting with the president. Bush had a photo opportunity with the review board last Friday.

In Clinton's first year, 1993, he participated in about 15 Roosevelt Room meetings that lasted up to two hours each with more than a dozen aides and Cabinet members, a former administration official said. That year was unusual because of the need for budget cuts to reduce the deficit. In later years, Clinton reduced his involvement to a half-dozen one-hour meetings with his top economic advisers. Cabinet secretaries appealed frequently to the president, and Clinton sometimes overruled his advisers.

Clinton was often criticized for being too involved in minutiae. But Gene Sperling, who was Clinton's economic adviser, said it was crucial to have the president personally involved. "The budget is such a defining manifestation of a president's ultimate priorities that it should ultimately be decided by the president himself and not delegated," Sperling said. "In the long run, Cabinet members accept adverse decisions better if they felt the president heard their side."

Bush advisers countered that Bush's arrangement allows for a more orderly process. "The president laid a very clear path and vision of the federal government's priorities, and when you give clear guidelines and markers, things fall into place quite nicely," said one senior adviser. "There's a better use of the president's time" than immersing himself in each budget line, the adviser said.

The process had the benefit of insulating Bush from petty staff and interagency squabbles. Lindsey said the system was in place "in part to protect the president."

Even within the White House, many Bush advisers did not know much about the functioning of the budget review board. Its members met and debated without extensive reliance on subordinates. They described it as a way to resolve disputes and shape policy that emerged from the "passback" process, OMB jargon for the negotiating that takes place between the White House and the Cabinet departments.

The budget review board was recommended during the transition by John Cogan, a Stanford University professor. Cogan, who had been at OMB during President Ronald Reagan's administration, said a similar review board consisted of James A. Baker III, Edwin A. Meese and David L. Stockman in the Reagan years.