McCain Assails Obamanomics
The Note
Washington's Original and Most Influential Tipsheet
March 26, 2009 11:28 AM
ABC News' David Chalian Reports: Wrapping together much of the criticism we have heard from him over the last couple of months, John McCain goes after Barack Obama's economic stewardship in a speech to be delivered today at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC.
McCain decries the cost of the stimulus bill, the earmarks in the omnibus spending bill, and the president's budget plan overall. (He withholds judgment on Geithner's toxic asset plan rolled out this week.)
And he charges Obama with soaking the rich to pay for federal government expansion.
"We must respect the principle that solutions must be durable. If we fall prey to the siren song of short-run expediency, we will spend money in ways that we will just have to reverse in the future," McCain is expected to say according to remarks prepared for delivery. "Sadly, I believe that the President's budget is a leading example of this problem. President Obama is sticking five percent of Americans with the bill for a massive expansion of government. As budget policy, this is risky business and bad economics, and it is premised on a misguided approach to fairness that will not stand the test of time."
Immediately following his loss to President Obama last fall, Sen. McCain talked of looking for areas of opportunity to work in concert with the Obama Administration. Sen. McCain stood with President Obama at the White House to highlight the not so sexy topic of procurement procedures. More significantly, he publicly supported the president's approach to winding down the Iraq war.
But with the economy as the single most dominant issue in American politics, Sen. McCain finds himself playing the former combatant/current opposition leader role much more than the Republican friend across the aisle working as a partner with President Obama. The high profile meeting between then President-elect Obama and Sen. McCain in Chicago shortly after the election seemed to suggest we may have seen a bit more of the partnership. The current issue terrain apparently proves to be far too difficult for that key reach across the partisan divide.
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The Note, 3/26/09: Crowd Wisdom -- Obama's outside-inside game will need a new talking point
March 26, 2009 8:08 AM
Klein By RICK KLEIN
One way to measure success: Everyone's talking about President Obama's budget.
Another way to measure success: Everyone's talking about how Democrats are ignoring big portions of President Obama's budget.
One way to frame an argument: Republicans don't have a budget of their own.
A way to unframe an argument: They will have a budget of their own by lunchtime Thursday.
One way to count progress: 100,000 people have signed up to fight for President Obama's budget.
A slightly different way to count progress: That's after an e-mail was sent to 14 million people, and tens of thousands of volunteers knocked on a million doors over the weekend.
There's an outside-inside balance going on now for the president's budget -- that droll document that only once every few years becomes the vehicle for not just legislation but an agenda.
As the president found out at lunch with Senate Democrats -- and would hear from the many House Democrats he hasn't sat down with yet -- the inside game is only going to get Team Obama so far.
Here comes the next play for the outside crowd -- inviting the public in for questioning on Thursday. (You know it's serious when the presidential Twitter feed kicks back into action.)
"Thursday's 'virtual town hall,' where President Obama will discuss the economy with regular Americans at the White House and field questions submitted online and through YouTube, is just one part of a multilayered, tech-savvy effort to create support for his ambitious agenda at the grass-roots level," Jon Ward writes in the Washington Times.
White House aides "are deeming this forum an 'experiment' where Americans can send questions and vote for the submissions they like," per ABC's Karen Travers. "The president will be standing at a podium in front of an audience made up of 'real Americans,' the White House said. An administration official will moderate the event and pose the most popular questions submitted on the Web site to the president."
"So far, questions about Obama's NCAA bracket picks are sorting toward the bottom of the list, along with those about what kind of dog the first family will choose. Instead, visitors are giving high ratings to questions about the economy -- the stated purpose of the virtual town hall -- and the president's plans to fix it," Christi Parsons writes in the Los Angeles Times.
Macon Phillips, director of new media for the White House, said the president was soliciting the "wisdom of the crowd." (Let that phrase marinate for a while.)
As of 8 am ET, more than 81,000 questions had been voted on more than 3 million times, per ABC's Ann Compton. Voting cuts off at 9:30.
The next moving piece involves TV, too. The DNC's Organizing for America on Thursday is launching a national and DC cable ad campaign to build on the weekend door-knocking. (America -- get excited about budget reconciliation!)
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