The Saturday night massacre; on "West 57th Street" a Congressional aide criticized Social Security; now he's out of a job - Phillip Longman

Washington Monthly, June, 1988 by Matthew Cooper

That was my experience with Longman, too, having both edited and read him. He hasn't gotten facts wrong, which is a joy. Less pleasurable were attempts to wrest him away from such demagogic statements as this one.

"While these and other accrual-based estimates of the government's fiscal position remain controversial, in part because of the uncertain assumptions about the future that necessarily underlie them, there is a strong and growing consensus among fiscal policy experts that the government's current method of keeping its books is simply inadequate to the reality it faces."

Honey, did you hear that? What's Buddy MacKay's phone number!?!

"That guy"

By 1985, Longman had a new byline: Washington writer. He moved to Washington, D.C. from the Princeton offices of the New Jersey Monthly not only to write, but shape policy. (He worked up a huge Amtrak bill visiting his wife, Robin, who remained in New Jersey.) Senator Dave Durenberger, a Minnesota Republican, had asked him to be the research director for his new think-tank/lobby, Americans for Generational Equity (AGE). This was a hotbed of Longmanism as the group whipped out papers on topics like entitlement reform and deficit reduction.

After two years, though, Longman realized that elderly politics was hardball politics. Durenberger's open-minded approach to entitlements like Social Security was bringing the senator heat. "Durenberger Link to Controversial Group Threatens His Reelection Bid," read a report in the National Journal. The St. Paul Pioneer Press Dispatch: "Durenberger's Baby Boomer Group Stirs Controversy." This year, the flame is being turned up by, of all people, Hubert Humphrey III, who's running against Durenberger. Addressing a senior citizen's group, Humphrey charged of AGE: "Those who would preach the gospel of young against old and dawn against darkness are misjudging you and your children and your children's children." The Happy Warrior hasn't gone after Longman directly, but, in a conversation I had with his press secretary Karen Chandler, she kept referring to "that guy with the Yuppie lobby." After two years at AGE and with reports continuing to circulate in the National Journal that Longman's views were an embarrassment, he quit. An aide to Durenberger told the Press Dispatch that he "got rid of Longman."

But last fall, redemption seemed on the horizon. Longman took a job with a congressman who, like Durenberger, dared to be different. More so. Buddy MacKay wasn't your power suit and empty mind. As a freshman, he screwed up the courage, along with Tim Penny, a Minnesota Democrat, to argue that Social Security cost of living allowances (COLAs) be considered for a budget freeze. (Just what Florida wants to hear.) And he bucked his state's delegation in 1986 when all its members but he cast votes for contra aid. Again, this courted no capital with the state's Dixiecrats, not to mention the Cubans. What's more, MacKay took on liberal shibboleths. As a bill to increase the minimum wage was gathering momentum this spring, MacKay opposed it in an editorial in The Washington Post (written by Longman). This wasn't some Chamber of Commerce screed. It made the case for an innovative tax credit for the working poor. Since fewer than one out of five of those who make the minimum wage are poor heads of households, a raise would wind up subsidizing all those teenagers more likely to use the money "to put gas in the Camaro than food on the table," MacKay (via Longman) argued. But when it came to entitlements, dissent was just too costly. That a MacKay can be browbeaten into dismissing Longman says a lot about the state of political dialogue in the country.