President Obama staying in background on deficits

Obama lies low in deficit debate By: Carrie Budoff Brown March 14, 2011 07:18 PM EDT

When President Barack Obama opened the first meeting of his fiscal commission last April, he promised to be “standing with them” as they produced recommendations for curbing the nation’s escalating debt. Republicans and Democrats say they are still waiting. While Obama has said he’s committed to deficit reduction, he has also has made clear it is secondary, at least for now, to his “winning the future” agenda. And that reflects a strategy driven by what his senior aides believe voters care about most — jobs, not deficits. Obama’s reluctance to join the debate in a sustained way has provoked rising frustration among lawmakers from both parties, who are speaking more forcefully about what they view as his absenteeism on one of the most pressing issues before them. But until House Republicans join their Senate GOP counterparts in appearing open to raising revenues, the administration is reluctant to weigh in too heavily, believing that a grand bargain that would inflict bipartisan pain will be difficult to attain. So, Obama has kept at arm’s length a group of six Republican and Democratic senators working on a deficit-reduction framework, not yet convinced that their efforts will be the vehicle by which a deal is struck. “The president’s approach to the larger set of budget issues raised by his own fiscal commission is very, very cautious up to now,” said William Galston, a policy adviser to former President Bill Clinton and a senior fellow at Brookings. “He has not embraced it, not by a long shot. It is clear that whatever he wants to accomplish, he doesn’t want to accomplish it alone and he doesn’t want to step out first.”   Obama’s light touch isn’t winning over the Hill. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) made the latest attempt to draw Obama into the debate sooner than the president would like, threatening to withhold Republican votes on the administration’s request to raise the debt limit unless it is coupled with a “credible” effort to rein in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid spending. McConnell’s move followed a nudge by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to broaden talks on the short-term budget to include entitlements and revenue increases, a scathing speech by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) for Obama to get more involved in budget issues and increasing calls by Democratic lawmakers for presidential leadership. Administration aides said Obama fully supports efforts to tackle the country’s long-term budget problems but that it is Washington — not the public — that is agitating for the president to wade into every legislative debate. This is a subtle shift in strategy from the past two years, when the president could be mistaken for a prime minister, expending much of his political capital in ushering bills through Congress. The gripes, which have flowed steadily from Capitol Hill regardless of the level of White House immersion, are really more a plea by lawmakers for presidential cover on tough decisions, aides have said. “This is a process. It is not a one-act play,” said Geoff Garin, a pollster who has done messaging work on the deficit debate for Senate Democrats. “We are early in Act 1 of a four-act play.” But the growing divide between Congress and the White House isn’t simply about presidential involvement. Often, the president doesn’t seem to be speaking the Hill’s language. After the Senate deadlocked last week over how to cut billions from the budget, Obama on Monday called for a rewrite of the federal education law — and made a full-throated pledge to shield education from the budget knife. “I’m determined to cut our deficits. But I refuse to do it by telling students here who are so full of promise that we’re not willing to invest in your future,” Obama said during a visit to Kenmore Middle School in Arlington, Va. “I’m not willing to tell these young people right here that their education isn’t a priority.” In the eyes of deficit hawks, Obama has passed up several opportunities to push the issue to the center of his agenda. He convened the fiscal commission last February, a move cast as an attempt to start an adult conversation about a metastasizing problem. It was quintessential Obama — the professor who likes to take the long view and serve up a bit of castor oil because it’s the right thing to do. “Everything is on the table,” he said at the time. “That’s how this thing is going to work.” When the commission chairmen offered their final recommendations in December, several months after Obama promised that he would be “standing with them,” the president declined to endorse the report, saying only that it was important work that he would study closely. The State of the Union address and his 2012 budget request came and went without Obama embracing any major components of the commission’s plan, which called for raising the retirement age for Social Security and cutting Medicare and Medicaid benefits. He did adopt some elements, including an overhaul of the corporate tax code and a freeze in pay for federal workers. Now, with lawmakers suggesting a look at entitlement reform during the short-term budget negotiations, White House aides said they aren’t ruling it out, but their preference is to finish the continuing resolution first and deal with the long-term budget issues later, once the threat of a government shutdown is averted. The administration has also signaled that it wants an unfettered vote on the debt-limit increase — the next major spending vote, as early as April, after the short-term budget is finished — rejecting McConnell’s threat to withhold Republican support unless the vote was coupled with a broader deficit-reduction plan, “The president believes it would be reckless and irresponsible to put the full faith and credit of the U.S. at risk by refusing to increase the debt limit,” White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage said in a statement. “Failing to act would have devastating consequences for our economy and middle-class Americans, and Republicans agree.” White House attempts to put off the debate will work as long as House Republicans go along on the debt limit, which isn’t clear yet. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has said defaulting on the country’s debt would be a “financial disaster,” suggesting that he would avoid such an outcome at all costs. But with a caucus anxious to make real progress on spending cuts, Boehner will face pressure to link it to deficit-reduction measures — finally forcing the administration’s hand. Boehner has promised to release a budget soon that tackles entitlement reform, but even he has acknowledged that the public isn’t ready to accept the tough medicine and that lawmakers need to educate voters. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) agreed. A leader of the bipartisan Senate negotiating group, Conrad said its biggest obstacle is public opinion. A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News polls found that Americans across all age groups and ideologies, including tea party supporters, believe it was “unacceptable” to make significant cuts in entitlement programs as a way to shrink the deficit. Conrad joked that he isn’t in “huge demand on a lot of the comedy shows” — the kind of forums to which politicians turn in order to reach voters who aren’t glued to cable news programs. “There is only one president,” Conrad conceded, when asked whether Obama was the one who should be doing that. “The question is, when does he wade in? I believe, as I have said a lot of times, it needs to start [in Congress] on a bipartisan basis and at some key moment, I’m confident the president will lead.”