Uh oh
by David Atkins
This doesn't sound good:
Top White House officials are warning liberal and labor leaders to brace themselves for President Obama’s budget proposal.
Gene Sperling, director of the National Economic Council, sought in meetings last week to lift the left’s gloom about Washington’s crackdown on spending by promising that the president this year will focus on job creation rather than deficit cutting.
Obama staffers sought to present their budget plan as a glass half full. According to sources familiar with the briefings, they promised that the president will focus on jobs and the economy, instead of deficit-cutting, which dominated last year’s debate on Capitol Hill.
Obama has signaled in recent weeks that he plans to run a populist reelection campaign. He will need to keep liberal activist and labor groups — important parts of the Democratic base — energized for his strategy to work.
In his first three years, Obama had a free hand to suggest spending levels for government programs in his annual budget blueprint. But that is not the case this year because the administration is constrained by the budget deal reached in August to raise the debt limit.
He must stick to the $1.047 trillion spending cap he agreed to with GOP leaders, which means he will call for less discretionary spending than he did last year.
Senior administration officials fear a backlash from the left and are trying to prepare their allies to expect a disappointing budget, sources say.
“A senior White House person said we weren’t going to be happy with the budget, but they’re doing the best they can” given the spending caps set by the 2011 Budget Control Act, said one source.
On the one hand, the White House is doubtless correct on its face that its hands are tied by the constraints of the debt ceiling deal to reduce a discretionary spending budget that is already preposterously low.
On the other hand, it isn't as if the President didn't have a direct hand in ramping up the Grand Bargain deficit hysteria that led to the debt ceiling deal in the first place.
And the consequences?
Obama took fire from the left flank of his party last year after he unveiled his budget proposal.
Members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), including Illinois Democratic Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., ripped Obama’s budget proposal. CBC Chairman Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) said at the time, “We cannot win the future by leaving our most vulnerable behind.”
Democrats accused the president of endangering the lives of low-income people.
“It would have real-world consequences for some pretty powerless people,” Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) said. “People would literally freeze.”
I don't agree with those who say that President doesn't care if people freeze in their homes. But I do think the President has bought into the delusional asset-based economic model that freaks out over budget deficits lest the Bond Trader Overlords be displeased. He has also bought into the idea politically that if he plays it cool and lets the other side play the extremist hand, he'll end up looking like the adult in the room. I think he probably figured that he could use his personal charisma to reach a deal with Republicans that didn't involve people losing their home heating assistance.
The former has been a disaster for the economy. The latter has probably been fairly successful for the President politically speaking, as it was for Bill Clinton. That in turn may help keep the crazies out of absolute power for another four years.
But maintaining the status quo isn't exactly acceptable when the country is on a 30-year downward trajectory. We needed more than that. Instead, we're going to get cuts to the discretionary budget that may be unavoidable now, but weren't inevitable before the Grand Bargain talk got started.
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