President Obama’s honeymoon is beginning to fade.
Members of Congress and old political hands say he needs to show substantial progress reviving the economy soon.
Some Democrats have started to worry that voters don’t and won’t understand the link between economic revival and Obama’s huge agenda, which includes saving the banking industry, ending home foreclosures, reforming healthcare and developing a national energy policy, among much else.
While lawmakers debate controversial proposals contained in the new president’s debut budget — cutting farm subsidies, raising taxes on charitable contributions, etc. — there is a growing sense that time is running out faster than expected.
Democrats from states racked by recession say Obama needs to produce an uptick by August or face unpleasant consequences. Others say that there is more time, but that voters need to see improvement by the middle of next year.
The most optimistic say Obama and Democrats in Congress will face a political backlash unless the economy improves by Election Day 2010.
“We’ve got to see an uptick by August or the Democratic majority is in jeopardy,” said Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), whose state had an 11.6 percent unemployment rate in January.
Stupak doesn’t fault Obama for pursuing healthcare reform, because high medical costs are intertwined with the economic difficulties, he said.
But Obama must move quickly, he added, saying, “By summer there is no more honeymoon. Period.”
Other Democrats and some Republicans question whether Obama’s attention is too thinly spread — whether his economic message may be diminished by forays into healthcare, education and energy reform.
“I think any political honeymoon has a short life, and in this economic climate it’s dictated by the public’s perception of hope for the economy,” said former Democratic Sen. Richard Bryan, who represented Nevada for 12 years.
Bryan described himself as an Obama supporter who derived “intellectual satisfaction” from the president’s healthcare, education and climate proposals. But he questioned whether most people connected such complicated issues to the plunging values of their retirement accounts or to soaring unemployment.
Pervasive voter uncertainty means Obama needs to emphasize short-term measures to fix the economy, Bryan said. “If there’s not a sense that we’ve reached bottom and there’s a sense of uncertainty, I think the president’s support will erode fairly rapidly,” he added.
Obama’s plan to create a $634 billion healthcare fund has triggered tension among members of his own party. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) criticized Obama’s call to cut high-income earners’ deductions on charitable contributions. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) also voiced concerns.
Meanwhile, financial markets have plunged and unemployment numbers have risen. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has fallen more than 2,000 points since Election Day and by just over 1,000 points since Obama took the oath of office. The economy has shed nearly 2 million jobs in the last three months.
Democratic sniping at the administration’s healthcare plans gives Republicans an opening to attack.
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) told The Hill that Obama has little time left to conjure an economic turnaround, though he added there “is no magical date.”
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said some people already expect to see positive economic results from Obama, even though he’s been in office less than two months and the economic crisis has been more than eight years in the making.
“I think he’s got six months,” Nagin said of Obama’s honeymoon. “The real attack dogs will come out at the end of the year, if there is not real progress.”
Obama’s push along a wide policy front has begun to alienate admirers on the other side of the political spectrum.
“I fear that in trying to do everything at once, they will do nothing well,” wrote conservative columnist David Brooks, a self-described Obama fan, in a recent column in The New York Times. “I fear that we have a group of people who haven’t even learned to use their new phone system trying to redesign half the U.S. economy.”
Obama’s wide-ranging vision has soured commentators who had earlier praised his job performance. “Obama’s proposals for many hundreds of billions in additional spending on universal healthcare, universal postsecondary education, a massive overhaul of the energy economy, and other liberal programs seem grandiose and unaffordable,” wrote Stuart Taylor in the National Journal.
Don Fowler, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said he supported Obama’s approach but acknowledged that the debate over healthcare reform could drag down his administration.
“Healthcare is an incredible political morass,” said Fowler, noting that Obama will have to take on powerful interests such as hospitals, insurance companies and the American Medical Association.
Fowler said it would require the wisdom of Solomon to forge a compromise, and warned that healthcare could become what Social Security reform was to President Bush’s second term.
To pass healthcare reform, Obama will need Republican allies. But some potential GOP partners say Obama is using the crisis to rush through a partisan liberal wish list.
“I don’t think there’s any question that they are trying to use this economic crisis to put in place a massive expansion of the size of government in the area of healthcare and education,” said Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), who recently withdrew as Obama’s nominee for Commerce secretary. “They’re using this as a stalking horse, this severe economic situation.”
Gregg pulled out of consideration, saying the job would have obliged him to support a more broadly liberal agenda than he had expected.
Nevertheless, he held out hope that Democrats and Republicans could find some common ground, such as on curbing entitlement costs. Gregg said Republicans also liked Obama’s decision to leave a sizable reserve of U.S. troops in Iraq.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), the senior Republican on the Finance Committee, who has worked with Democrats on healthcare reform, said Obama needs to focus on the economy.
“He’s got to use a rifle shot on the economy,” he said. “He’s emphasizing [other issues] to too great of an extent so people don’t think he’s serious about the economy.
“He’s biting off too much, considering how bad the economy is,” Grassley added, noting that the stock market has fallen significantly since Obama won the election on a platform to reform healthcare and fight global warming.