The Week

■ In St. Paul, legislative employees report a ghost haunting the Minnesota Capitol, “but it’s not threatening, it’s friendly,” one advises, apparently ruling out the possibility that the apparition is a taxpayer.

■ Did Dick Darman fumble the budget ball by himself, or was he tripped up by House conservatives? John Sununu insists that the budget disaster outlined by Warren Brookes in our cover story last issue could have been averted if Newt Gingrich and other key conservatives had signed on to the original budget agreement. Let us jog his memory. The first draft included the worst of what we have now: the luxury sales tax, an emasculated Gramm-Rudman deficit control, and the prohibition against future tax cuts. Mr. Sununu swore last year that there would be no deal without a capital-gains-tax cut. Had he delivered on that, the bad features of this agreement would have been at least offset. But the Democrats succeeded first in pairing lower capital-gains taxes with higher income-tax rates (at which point Gingrich walked away), and then in killing capital- gains-tax cuts in the name of fairness. The recession and the $400-billion deficit are brought to you by establishment Republicans desperate for a deal.

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■ In St. Paul, legislative employees report a ghost haunting the Minnesota Capitol, “but it’s not threatening, it’s friendly,” one advises, apparently ruling out the possibility that the apparition is a taxpayer.

■ Did Dick Darman fumble the budget ball by himself, or was he tripped up by House conservatives? John Sununu insists that the budget disaster outlined by Warren Brookes in our cover story last issue could have been averted if Newt Gingrich and other key conservatives had signed on to the original budget agreement. Let us jog his memory. The first draft included the worst of what we have now: the luxury sales tax, an emasculated Gramm-Rudman deficit control, and the prohibition against future tax cuts. Mr. Sununu swore last year that there would be no deal without a capital-gains-tax cut. Had he delivered on that, the bad features of this agreement would have been at least offset. But the Democrats succeeded first in pairing lower capital-gains taxes with higher income-tax rates (at which point Gingrich walked away), and then in killing capital- gains-tax cuts in the name of fairness. The recession and the $400-billion deficit are brought to you by establishment Republicans desperate for a deal.