ONCE YOU EARN a reputation as a Serious Man in Washington, its almost impossible to lose it. In January 2011, a trio of organizations that preach fiscal responsibility held a gala at the Newseum, D.C.s gleaming shrine to the media. Alan Greenspan; Doug Elmendorf, the head of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO); and a bunch of lobbyists and political strategists shuffled in to witness the presentation of a new award, the Fiscy, which, according to Concord Coalition president Robert Bixby, was intended to provide some recognition and credit to those who have the guts to answer [questions about the debt] with something more than platitudes. One of the three inaugural recipients was Paul Ryan, who, Bixby announced, had earned his Fiscy Award really by being the first [congressman] in several years to step forward with a specific scorable budget plan that would actually solve the nations long-term structural deficits.
There were two problems with this. First, Ryans plan, the Roadmap for Americas Future, wasnt truly scorablehe had instead simply given the CBO estimates for future revenue and spending, prompting the organization to note that its analysis does not represent a cost estimate. The other problem was that, just a few weeks prior, but after the groups had decided to award a Fiscy to Ryan, he had rejected the recommendations of the Simpson-Bowles debt-reduction commission he had served on.
When I asked Bixby about this recently, he acknowledged that the juxtaposition was awkward. He couldve given the entitlement reform effort a big boost and did not and that was a defining moment and not his best moment, he said. But Bixby did not regret the award: It wasnt for his work on Simpson-Bowles. It was for another body of work. Like when a Nobel Prize is for a body of work from ten years ago. That body of work included Ryans overall authority on the issue. Hes very eloquenthe describes the nature of the debt and deficit problem very well, Bixby said. If somebodys got a wealth of facts and figures at their fingertips and can recall them at a moments notice, other people tend to defer to that. He knows all these numbers.
Bixbys leniency here is remarkable and can be explained by a cultural shift that has taken place in the capital. Simply put, Washington has seen its supply of people able to talk about government in substantive termswho know all these numbersdwindle over the last two decades or so. The press has shifted ever more into permanent campaign mode; congressmen spend ever more time raising money rather than digging deep into issues that interest them. The upshot is that Washington now finds itself highly susceptible to doe-eyed young men brandishing graphs. What these wonks propose doesnt even have to add up or be scorable, as the case may be with the Ryan budget, because people who lack much policy knowledge themselves regard those who have it with a reflexive awesee the stud-with-a-spreadsheet halo that formed around Peter Orszag, the bespectacled former Obama administration budget director. And those who actually possess policy chops realize their singularity and seek comfort in each others company, oftentimes across the ideological divide
