In the continued outreach that is making some Republicans squirm, President Obama met with the House Republican conference Wednesday—the first time he has done so since 2011. The hangout is part of a string of casual meetings that POTUS has held with Republican leaders, hoping to reach a bargain in the deficit-reduction deal by early summer.
President Obama’s meeting underscored their deep divisions over fiscal policy as both sides acknowledged that an overarching budget compromise was in doubt.The hourlong discussion at the Capitol, and the release of a new budget by Senate Democrats on Wednesday that adds $100 billion in new stimulus spending and would impose higher taxes on large corporations and wealthy Americans, illustrated anew just how difficult it will be to resolve the issues that have split the Congress for years and created a perpetual cycle of deadline-driven short-term fiscal policy.
“Ultimately, it may be that the differences are just too wide,” the president said in an interview with ABC that was broadcast Wednesday morning. “It may be that ideologically, if their position is, ‘We can’t do any revenue,’ or, ‘We can only do revenue if we gut Medicare or gut Social Security or gut Medicaid,’ if that’s the position, then we’re probably not going to be able to get a deal.”
In the interview, Mr. Obama also disputed an assertion that has become dogma among House Republicans: that the country faces a debt crisis and must balance its budget. The new House plan sets out to balance the budget within 10 years.
But Mr. Obama played down the idea that the federal debt was crippling the nation.
“We don’t have an immediate crisis in terms of debt,” Mr. Obama said. He also said that failure to get a big deal would not send the economy into a tailspin.
“That won’t – that won’t create a crisis,” he said on ABC. “It just means that we will have missed an opportunity. I think that opportunity is there and I’m going to – make sure that they know that I’m prepared to – work with them.”
Senate Democrats will introduce their own continuing resolution to fund the government through the rest of the fiscal year. The House passed its version last week. Congress has until late this month to come to terms on a funding agreement. And if they can’t even do that, then, well, it goes without saying what it would suggest about the prospects of a longer term budget deal.
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Rewind to early 2013, and you’ll find an agreement to avert the fiscal cliff that involved raising tax rates for the wealthiest Americans. But since that deal, Republican leaders have stood firm against any new attempts to raise taxes, while Democrats haven’t let up their call to raise new tax revenue. And on entitlements, a similar impasse can be found.
Ultimately, anything resembling a renewed “grand bargain” looks like it would require a “grand gesture” or “grand gestures” from one or both sides. A concession on entitlements from Democrats, a willingness to accept new tax revenue for Republicans – these are the types of big moves we’re talking about.
In January and February, President Obama was carrying the fight to Republicans on budget issues — winning major concessions on revenue in a fiscal cliff deal and watching as the GOP postponed a showdown over the debt ceiling.
As the March 1 deadline for sequestration approached, Obama seemed to be sprinting toward a clear political win. Then he stumbled.
A new Washington Post-ABC News poll makes clear that Obama has tumbled from the political heights he enjoyed in the first two months of the year.
His approval rating now sits at 50 percent with 46 percent disapproving,
While Obama has stumbled, Congressional Republicans have held steady — although they remain deeply unpopular. In the new Post-ABC survey, 24 percent approve of how Congressional GOPers are handling their business. That’s unchanged from the January survey.
With wider support going into the heart of the sequestration battle, the president had more to lose than the Republicans. Playing in the mud gets messy, especially if you looked better off beforehand.
That said, it’s worth bearing in mind that Congressional Republicans still come in for more of the blame for sequestration being triggered; 47 percent say the GOP deserves more of the blame while 33 percent name Obama.