President Obama unveiled his election year budget on Monday to universal rebuke from both Republicans on the Hill, who charge that the budget increases spending and requisite borrowing to unsustainable levels, and Democrats who say that the budget does not increase stimulus spending levels enough.
Of course, this argument is purely academic. The Democratic-controlled Senate has not passed a budget in over 1,000 days and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has already said that there will be no budget passed this year, as is required by law.
Obama’s $3.8 trillion proposal includes significant spending proposals and $1.5 trillion in new taxes. The spiraling budget deficit is also tackled in his new budget proposal which the White House suggests will fall to 5.5 percent of GDP in 2013 (predicated on the assumption that federal revenues would increase by 17 percent over the next fiscal year).
Reid, as well his fellow Democrats, would of course spare President Obama the embarrassment of having his proposed budget fail in the Senate by nearly universal margins (Obama’s 2011 budget proposal failed in the upper chamber by 97 – 0 votes).
But Senate Democrats are playing with fire. Their tenuous control of that body is imperiled by the dynamics of this election year; Democrats are defending 23 seats to the Republicans 10, many in states which vote Republican in national elections. The president’s election year strategy, mirroring Harry Truman’s crusade against a “do nothing” Republican-controlled 80th Congress, requires that voters simply forget that the Senate remains in the president’s party’s hands. By forcing the Senate to stall and delay legislative fix after legislative fix, he may believe that he is cementing his election-year premise – but the cynicism of this plan, which depends on the ignorance of his constituency, is dangerous.
Republicans have at least two Senators on the bubble in 2012; Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown and Nevada Sen. Dean Heller (both seeking their first full terms). Senate Democrats must defend imperiled seats in Florida, Missouri, Montana, Virginia, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Hawaii, New Mexico, Ohio, Nebraska and North Dakota. Republicans need three seats to lock the chamber (requiring a vice presidential tie breaking vote for most legislation to pass) and four seats to take total control. Indeed, Nebraska and North Dakota’s seats have been all but ceded to Republicans at this stage in the election. Obama’s dangerous ploy to shift responsibility for his administration’s failures to the down ballot is the equivalent of cutting off his nose.
Should he win reelection but lose control of both chambers, governing becomes infinitely more difficult. There will be no Clintonian triangulation in Obama’s second term – even if he should pivot to the center, there is no good faith among Congressional Republican. If Obama loses in November, he will have created the conditions for total Republican control of Washington and the electoral mandate that lubricates all major legislative initiatives in the capitol.
Obama is playing with fire with his budget proposal – Obama’s Hail Mary budget betrays the weakness of his political position. Obama may pull off a miracle, but his colleagues in the Senate will have to suffer for his victory.
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