Mulvaney likely to be activist head of OMB

U.S. Rep. Mick Mulvaney, the Indian Land Republican who officially was tapped this week by President-elect Donald Trump to head the Office of Management and Budget, is about as fiscally conservative as they come. That might put him on a collision course with Trump’s proposed tax plan that would add an estimated $7 trillion to the national debt over the next decade.

Mulvaney, whose district includes York, Chester and Lancaster counties, was elected to Congress during the tea party wave in 2010. He is a founding member of the Freedom Caucus, a group of hard-line conservative Republican congressmen dedicated to spending cuts and a smaller federal government. The group played a key role in forcing the resignation of House Speaker John Boehner.

When asked recently which job he coveted in a Trump administration, Mulvaney said he would love to be OMB director. While the position more commonly known as White House budget director can be one of the less visible jobs, Mulvaney said he thought it was a place where “real improvements could be made in how the government is run.”

Mulvaney moved quickly from the S.C. House to the state Senate to Congress. He had been touted as a candidate for governor or the U.S. Senate.

But choosing to take the job at OMB might also have its advantages. President Reagan’s budget director, David Stockman, was the high-profile engineer of Reaganomics, who was chiefly responsible for introducing the Laffer Curve and the theory of “trickle down” economics to the nation.

Rob Portman, who, like Mulvaney, left the House to become OMB head, under President George W. Bush, recently was re-elected as to the U.S. Senate from Ohio.

So, the job is far from a dead end. And we suspect Mulvaney, if he is confirmed, will try to be an influential voice in the administration.

He will produce a federal budget proposal, oversee and rate the performance of executive branch agencies and, perhaps most significantly, advise the president on economic matters. The role of adviser is where he is likely to wield the most clout.

Forbes magazine evaluated Trump’s proposed tax plan, which consists primarily of reducing the number of tax brackets and cutting taxes overall, as well as repealing the alternative minimum and estate taxes. Analysts projected that, with interest added, the plan would reduce federal revenues by $7.2 trillion over the next decade, with nearly half the tax cuts going to the top 1 percent of households.

Trump claims that the cuts would stimulate enough economic growth to pay for themselves, which will sound familiar to those familiar with the trickle-down theory. We wonder, however, whether Mulvaney will go along with that plan.

While it undoubtedly would have the effect of shrinking government, it also would be likely to swell the federal debt. Mulvaney, a fiscal hawk who has been a supporter of shutting down the government rather than approving more spending, no doubt would champion matching any revenue reductions with cuts in expenditures.

Mulvaney also will be in a position to lead the effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act and to pare President Barack Obama’s federal regulations.

In other words, this may not be the faceless job some predicted it would be. We suspect Mulvaney will do his best to take advantage of this opportunity to make substantive changes in how the federal government is run.

This story was originally published December 20, 2016 at 6:17 PM with the headline "Mulvaney likely to be activist head of OMB."