ShareThisBy MICHAEL COLLINS
Rob Portman steps onto his office balcony overlooking Pennsylvania Avenue and is instantly bathed in streaks of bright yellow sunlight from a hot summer morning.
Off to the right, the Secret Service stands guard over the White House. Across the street is Blair House, where official guests of the U.S. government sleep during overnight visits to Washington. Around the corner are the White House press quarters, where at this moment President Bush is promising millions of dollars in aid to Lebanon in light of its recent cease-fire with Israel.
Portman goes back inside and rearranges a stack of papers on his desk. A sheet of stationery with a few handwritten notes scrawled on the back catches his eye, and he holds it up for a closer look.
The handwriting is Portman's, and the notes are from the night before. Portman was on the phone until midnight with the president's speechwriters, helping them come up with the precise wording for the president's press briefing _ the one that Bush is delivering across the street.
In a town where influence is sometimes measured in terms of prestigious office real estate and ready access to the president, Portman has an enviable abundance of both.
Portman marked his first 100 days as the White House budget director on Sept. 6, a job that dictates almost daily meetings with the president and places him both literally and figuratively at the center of virtually every policy decision.
"This is a job that is almost endless in terms of the number of things you are asked to do, to be involved in, because just about everything has a budget and a management component," he said.
Portman, a native of suburban Cincinnati, served in the House for 12 years before the Bush administration tapped him in 2005 to become the country's chief trade negotiator. He had been in that job for almost a year when Bush asked him to become director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.
As budget director, the 50-year-old Republican said he wakes up each morning focused on two things: how to spend taxpayer dollars wisely and how to improve the federal government's overall fiscal situation.
The White House said in late July that a surge in tax revenues means that the federal deficit will fall to $247 billion in 2008, well below the target of $260 billion.
"I believe this will continue over the next few years to the point that we will be able to show a lower deficit, which is good for the future," Portman said.
Still, he said, something must be done to rein in the costs of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and other "entitlement" programs. Medicare, for example, is projected to grow at 9 percent next year _ roughly three times the growth of the national economy.
If nothing is done to curb spending on such programs, it will eventually consume the federal budget, Portman warned.
Though no longer a member of Congress himself, Portman still spends a considerable amount of time on Capitol Hill.
Lawmakers have complained in the past that the Bush administration has done a poor job of communicating with them.
Portman said he knows how they feel. When he was in the House, he sometimes felt ambushed when an administration official would want to make last-minute changes to legislation. So he tries to meet regularly with congressional leaders and members of the budget and appropriations committees.
His attempts at an open dialogue have won mixed reviews.
Portman served as the liaison between the House leadership and the president while he was in Congress, "and he has been applying those lessons to his new role," said House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio.
But House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California said Portman has been a strong proponent of "the misplaced priorities of President Bush and the Republican rubber-stamp Congress" and that those priorities "have not included bipartisan dialogue to address the urgent needs of the American people."
"Mr. Portman's credentials are of little help given the Bush administration's refusal to pursue economic policies that help middle-class families, who are struggling to pay for health care, energy and college costs," Pelosi said.
Whatever one thinks of his performance, the new job seems to have increased Portman's national profile. After he was named budget director, the political Web site wonkette.com complained that he is "really, really boring" _ so dull, in fact, that he didn't even have one of those catchy nicknames that the president is famous for giving to staffers.
Not true, Portman said.
"The president calls me various things, but 'Robby' is probably the most common one," he said. "Sometimes 'Robby Bobby.' And sometimes 'Portman.' When he says 'Portman,' I know I'm potentially in trouble."
Does that happen often?
"Yes," he said, laughing. "I was in a meeting with him _ it was on homeland-security issues. He comes in the room, looks at me and says, 'Portman!' You're not sure what's coming next. But in this case it was a friendly interaction."
(E-mail collinsm(at)shns.com.)
