NEEDED: A SKUNK

NEEDED: A SKUNK
Washington Post: For deficit hawks, these are worrisome days. As Republican leaders look toward full control of Congress next year, an expensive agenda is already on the table, including economic stimulus, a prescription-drug program and permanent enactment of last year's tax cuts. The cost of homeland security and the war on terrorism, not to mention possible military action in Iraq, will continue to mount. The federal budget has already flipped from surplus to red ink, and the congressional budget process is fraying, with the two houses unable to reach agreement this year on budget targets and the Senate able to extend some important budget-balancing rules only temporarily.
Balanced budgets
As the new Senate leadership has taken shape, Sen. Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico, for 22 years the leading Republican on the Budget Committee and a leader in the fight for balanced budgets, has taken the chair of another committee. Budget watchdogs fear that Republican Whip Don Nickles of Oklahoma, the incoming budget chairman, will be more inclined to push for the president's tax-cut proposals even in the face of potential long-term deficits.
One key test facing congressional leaders is the choice of a replacement for Congressional Budget Office Director Dan Crippen, who is leaving when his term expires at the end of the year. Over the past quarter-century, the CBO has been charged with providing lawmakers critical estimates of the budget impact of legislative decisions. Its directors, including Mr. Crippen, have often played the role of skunk at the garden party, pointing out the real costs associated with politically popular programs. For some time Mr. Crippen has been urging lawmakers to pay attention now to the squeeze that the baby boomers' retirement and health-care costs will put on the federal budget in coming decades.
It's a question that must be considered not only in connection with Social Security reform, but also with prescription-drug benefits and, of course, the president's tax cuts, which if made permanent would take a sharp bite out of federal resources just as the boomers begin to retire. Many Republicans would like the CBO to embrace an estimating mechanism that offsets some of the lost revenue with income from economic growth expected to result from lower taxes. That method, known as dynamic scoring, would make the tax reductions look less costly. Mr. Crippen has rejected such an approach because, he argues, there is no way for the CBO to credibly estimate those effects.
Litmus test
House and Senate leaders ought to resist the temptation to make support for dynamic scoring a litmus test for Mr. Crippen's successor. They need a CBO director whose allegiance, like Mr. Crippen's, is to the credibility of the budget office and its projections. Congress needs a strong independent capacity to analyze the proposals that will come from the White House; all the more so if leaders' basic inclination is to go along with a politically powerful president's plans. Turning the skunk into a pussycat might be tempting, but it would be a serious mistake.
MISS AMERICA -- IN A MUZZLE
Philadelphia Inquirer: This time, Miss America judges didn't pick the one with the prettiest face, the curviest curves or even the most impressive talent. This year they went for brains. They awarded the crown to Harvard Law School-bound Erika Harold, a Phi Beta Kappa grad from the University of Illinois, her home state.
Wasn't that the logical thing for a "scholarship pageant" to do?
Apparently not, because Ms. Harold's mind -- or rather her determination to speak it -- has ruffled pageant officials.
Although Ms. Harold as a contestant had stressed the issue of youth violence -- a topic that no doubt impressed judges with both its relevance and lack of controversy -- she instead began talking about sex.
Un-sex, actually. To the disgruntlement of pageant officials, Ms. Harold has become the new darling of the pro-abstinence movement -- touting the word "no" as the best and safest kind of birth control. When pageant officials reportedly complained, Ms. Harold told reporters exactly what she thought about that. "I will not be bullied," she declared.
Dripping with irony
Of course, the whole situation just drips with irony. Isn't this the same Miss America Organization that gets in a tizzy when contestants get caught photographed in various sexy poses? And aren't its contestants assumed to be virginal -- or at least expected to act that way?
So, yes, how refreshing to hear an outspoken Miss America say she is indeed a virgin -- and that other young people should avoid the early sexual contact that harms so many. But don't get too carried away with the notion that, finally, Miss America is about outspoken, strong women.
Though in theory she symbolizes the best of young American womanhood, Miss America is in fact a mere contractor whose changing persona -- out with cute and giggly, in with brains -- is determined in advance by the pageant organization. Break the rules, and that crown can be yanked so fast there's still hair attached.
Pageant officials and Ms. Harold have reached a compromise: She talks about youth violence but also is free to work in comments about sexual abstinence as something she believes in personally.