Obama Turns Up Heat, Slams GOP Ideas

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FEBRUARY 6, 2009

Obama Turns Up Heat, Slams GOP Ideas
By JONATHAN WEISMAN and NAFTALI BENDAVID
WSJ

WASHINGTON -- Frustrated by Republican unity against his economic-stimulus plan, President Barack Obama toughened his rhetoric Thursday and moved to wield his personal popularity to overcome opposition in Congress. Mr. Obama's recent courtship of Republicans gave way to blunt derision of their ideas for the stimulus, as he tried to raise the political pressure to pass a measure with a price tag of over $900 billion in the Senate.

Republican proposals are "rooted in the idea that tax cuts alone can solve all our problems, that government doesn't have a role to play, that half measures and tinkering are somehow enough, that we can afford to ignore our most fundamental economic challenges," the president said in an address at the Department of Energy Thursday. "Those ideas have been tested, and they have failed."

Seeking to regain the momentum on economic policy, Mr. Obama on Friday is expected to announce the members of his newly formed Economic Recovery Advisory Board, led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. On Monday, Mr. Obama will give the first news conference of his presidency -- on prime-time television -- after Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner details a rescue plan for the financial sector. Mr. Obama's allies on and off Capitol Hill are also turning up the political heat, with e-mail and phone blitzes, television and radio advertisements, all designed to break the GOP's united front. "I was hopeful he would have done this even sooner," said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.), who pressed the president to take his case to the American people in a closed-door meeting with him Wednesday.

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Mr. Obama's comments Thursday signaled an escalation of his own role in the fray. "When you hear these attacks...you have to ask yourself, are these folks serious?" Mr. Obama asked. The president's tactical turnabout is a response to the Republicans' remarkable success during the past two weeks both in influencing the congressional debate over the Democrats' stimulus plan, and shaping a public image of the bill as pork-laden and ineffective. In a recent USA Today/Gallup Poll, 38% said the Democratic plan should pass as is, 37% said it should be passed with major changes and 17% said it should be rejected outright.

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Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) said the White House has learned a lesson this week about his erstwhile Republican legislative partners. While Democrats may have seen a tectonic political shift regarding the role of government after their electoral sweep in November, the GOP did not. "This has been an early lesson for President Obama and his team," Mr. Schumer said. "The idea of getting 80 votes in the Senate is now a distant memory, even though it's two weeks old."

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