With the intense, nonstop activity that marked his political campaign, President Barack Obama is engaged in his next big thrust: selling his $3.6 trillion budget.
To achieve this mission, he has done what he does best, assuming the role of communicator-in-chief. Over the past week, he’s traveled coast to coast for town hall meetings to connect with citizens, gaining momentum after the American Insurance Group flap. He’s also made a number of high-profile appearances on “The Tonight Show,†“60 Minutes,†and last night’s presidential news conference — the second such event in his first 65 days in office, unprecedented for a sitting president.
He is not on the hustings alone. Members of his economic team — Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, White House Chief Economic Advisor Lawrence Summers, and Budget Director Peter Orszag — have also taken to the airwaves.
“We’ve put in place a comprehensive strategy to attack the crisis on all fronts,” Obama said during last night’s news conference. “It’s a strategy to create jobs, help responsible homeowners, to restart lending, and to grow our economy over the long term.”
He added that to end “an economic cycle of bubble and bust†his administration “submitted a budget to Congress that will build our economic recovery on a strong foundation so we don’t have to face another crisis like this 10 or 20 years from now.” Obama maintains that he plans to achieve this objective through an investment in education, development of a comprehensive energy policy, fixing the healthcare system, and reducing the budget deficit, “which can be cut in half in five years even under the most pessimistic estimates.”
It’s not an easy campaign. Republican congressional leaders are launching their own offensive, painting calling the budget as “the most irresponsible in American history” and seeking to muster support from the public to derail his proposal.
And Mirek Topolanek, prime minister of the Czech Republic and president of the European Union, today called Obama’s economic program “the way to Hell” and that it “will undermine the stability of the foreign markets.”
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported that it projects debt to increase $9.3 trillion over 10 years instead of the administration’s $7 trillion estimate.
Obama says he expects such criticism and, in some cases, “we’ll have to make adjustments.” But he constantly tells audiences, televised and in person, that they must exercise patience.
During a conference call with members of the press, Orszag defended the administration’s proposed budget. He says that the House and Senate versions are “98% the same as the budget proposal sent up in February. Our proposals are not twins but brothers that look alike.”
Orszag also maintained that the administration plans to close future budget gaps based on recommendations of the newly formed Task Force on Tax Reform, an extension of the Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Headed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volker, Orszag says the group will focus on “tax simplification, tax evasion and corporate welfare.” Its members, which includes Laura Tyson, former chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, and TIAA-CREF CEO Roger Ferguson, one of Black Enterprise’s 100 Most Powerful Executives, will find ways to recoup an estimated $300 billion in unaccounted tax revenues each year. The body will make recommendations to the White House in December.
As for discrepancies with CBO on deficit figures, Orszag says the agency’s analysis assumes annual GDP growth of 2.2% while the Obama administration cites a rate of 2.6%.
Democrats in the House and Senate have begun the process of rewriting the budget, targeting such key areas as the middle class tax cut and “cap and trade,” which would place enforceable limitations on companies that emit carbon and greenhouse gas emissions. Obama met with the Senate Democratic Caucus today in an effort to convince members to support his budget and avoid a filibuster when it is time for a vote.
Obama is prepared for the budget revisions and maintains that “we never expected when we printed our budget that Congress would simply Xerox it and vote on it.” However, he challenges the Republican opposition — chief among them his former Commerce Secretary Judd Gregg nominee — to offer alternatives. In the meantime, the Obama campaign continues.