New Orleans: :OMB director blistered Army Corps chief before firing ... "president's budget is unacceptable and probably just a cynical ploy ..."

www.GovExec.com - OMB director blistered Army Corps chief in memo before firing (3/8/02): "March 8, 2002" | By Lisa Caruso, CongressDaily

Despite an Office of Management and Budget official's denial that OMB Director Mitch Daniels was involved in the forced resignation of former Army Corps of Engineers head Mike Parker, a frank and sharply worded memo from Daniels indicates he was at least in the loop.

A former House member from Mississippi and a onetime member of the Appropriations Committee, Parker was asked to resign his post as assistant secretary of the Army for Civil Works less than a week after bluntly telling the Senate Budget Committee he believed OMB deliberately had shortchanged his agency's fiscal 2003 budget.
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Daniels observed that Parker, Flowers and Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., "reached convivial agreement that the president's budget is unacceptable and probably just a cynical ploy on our part."
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But Daniels minced few words in describing the exchanges in his memo. He labeled as "totally bogus" Flowers' testimony that the president's budget, which would cut $600 million from the Corps' current spending level, would force the Corps to terminate existing contracts and could lead to the loss of 45,000 jobs....