A Missionary For OMB

Who promises to cut and slash

When David Alan Stockman was asked to become Reagan's director of the Office of Management and Budget, he accepted with alacrity. It was, after all, a chance to put into practice the budget gospel that he had been preaching during his two terms as a Congressman from southern Michigan: cut, cut and slash, slash. His boss has promised to slice 2% from the $640 billion budget for 1981; Stockman may push for more radical surgery. Earlier this year, he advocated abolishing federal revenue sharing with cities and states, paring back federal job programs, freezing Medicaid payments, and reducing appropriations for foreign aid, social science research and mass transit. In addition, he said he would cut the budgets of all regulatory agencies by 20%.

A friend says that Stockman, as Reagan's chief budget cutter, is resigned to being the "most unpopular man in Washington for the next few years." His manner is sometimes aloof and abrasive, but even critics admire his ability to marshal facts quickly and wield them to deadly effect during debates.

At 34, Stockman is the youngest Cabinet member named so far. The son of a Michigan farmer, he was an antiwar activist as an undergraduate at Michigan State University, and studied at Harvard Divinity School. A bachelor, he is a workaholic who shuns receptions and cocktail parties.

A born-again conservative, he tends to hold fervent and dogmatic views. He once told an interviewer: "At 20, it sounds great to say that self-interest is the most destructive force in society. Now I believe that self-interest is an inherent part of the human condition and what we need to do is harness it, not abolish it." He boasts of paying little attention to pressure groups, even among his own constituents. Says he: "I'm not much of a horse trader or a head counter. I'm more interested in ideas than votes because we can't make rational policy in a country this complex unless we're guided by ideas. Time and time again we get into trouble because we're guided by pure expediency and political pragmatism." True to that precept, he was the only Michigan Congressman to vote against federal loan guarantees for Chrysler Corp.

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