Obama should demand a bill unencumbered with GOP economic policy, writes the author. How Obama can end the agony

An obvious way out of the current impasse over the debt limit exists, if only President Barack Obama would see fit to take it.

This exit path would get the House Republican members, out of the corner they’ve painted themselves into by attaching a demand for large cuts in the budget without any revenue; would extract the Democrats out of the tangled web they have woven as they try to come up with a proposal that protects themselves and the entitlement programs; and would give the Obama a larger hand than even he seems to want in managing economic policy for the remainder of his presidency – however long that would be.


With the leaders of both chambers still noodling around in a search for what to add to the bill to raise the debt ceiling, with Obama having a long series of high-level meetings at the White House, with the public growing tired of the spectacle and worried about jobs, and the bond market getting antsy, the stock market poised to take a deep dive, foreign investors who prop up our debt having second thoughts and the president looking increasingly like a wuss there’s a simple step that Obama could – no, should – take.

Tonight, (though last night would have been good), he could stand at a podium in the East room — the Osama bin Laden podium would be good -– or speak from the Oval Office, (the press room wouldn’t provide enough gravamen to the business at hand); and he should demand that the Congress get a clean bill raising the debt limit to his desk by Thursday.

Moreover, he should state that he will veto any bill encumbered by amendments, and emphasize that if the Congress does not comply he will take the issue to the American people.

This would be no small threat. If I were a betting person I would hazard a very large sum that if the president stands up and says, “ENOUGH” — that he has tried and tried and tried to work out a compromise acceptable to the two major parties, but he hasn’t been able to and neither have they, that he is now demanding what he should have received in the first place, a bill unencumbered with Republican economic policy — he will be cheered throughout the land. Of course, a segment of Republicans would object. But that would just play into the president’s strategy of isolating the Republicans, of showing that they are far from the mainstream, are obstructionists and unreasonable.

The president’s sitting with the Republican and Democratic leaders day after day, even tolerating walk-outs by House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and the Majority Leader

Eric Cantor (R-Va.) had been a display of patience that has both admirable and also threatening to turn him into a schlub.

The president reportedly remarked to the House leaders, “Eisenhower wouldn’t have sat here like this.” That’s precisely the point. There comes a moment when his sitting there while the Republican leaders bicker and talk their talking points turns into an outright offense to the Office of the President. It’s up to Obama to set things right.

The president needs to get his dignity back. He’s appeared to let the Republicans lead him around by the nose. Once more, he’s let them set the terms of the debate. His comment in the press room Friday, “I’ve been left at the altar twice,” was pathetic and embarrassing. You wanted to avert your eyes.

It’s come time, perhaps long-since come time, for Obama to take charge, show some strength and commit an act of political jujitsu that will leave the Republicans gasping for air.

In a short speech to the nation, Obama might remind his fellow citizens of the patience he has shown, of the fact that time is running out for the drafting and passage of a bill to increase the debt ceiling. He could make it clear that to lift the debt ceiling does not, as many people seem to think, sanction the spending of one more dime than the Congress has not already agreed to. (It’s a silly law and a nuisance — since it does nothing but affirm actions already taken.)

Then he demands a clean bill – unencumbered by any restrictions on the president’s future management of the economy, a dubious encroachment on the powers of the Executive Branch. With the debt limit due to run out in eight days, the president would be well served to demand that a clean bill approved by both chambers be on his desk by Thursday.

My guess is that he would be roundly cheered for such an act. Obama would look like a leader. The virtual disappearance of that Barack Obama has disappointed scads of people who had believed in him in 2008. They thought that he could move the country – carry it along into more enlightened policies. But for a number of reasons that have been speculated on, he has almost entirely failed to do this.

Even those swing votes, the independents — who Obama and his chief political adviser, David Plouffe, who is now a senior member of the White House staff and makes most of the calls on the political impact of just about everything the president does, find so desirable — would be pleased, one should think, with this moment of clarity of purpose.

The truth is that the president shouldn’t want any of the deals that have been discussed so far; in fact he shouldn’t want any deals at all. They all tie his hands – throughout the years he serves in office. They demand that the debt be cut – even in a weak economy that has stagnated and unemployment is too high.

How, exactly, are Americans to get jobs if the government are bent on a course of reducing government. How are jobs to increase and businesses to flourish in an economy that is being tightened, weak as it is already?

This diametrically different approach may require more of a turn-around of policy than Obama is ready to swallow. That’s unfortunate, because the alternative is to threaten further the already weak economy. Some smart people, including Lawrence Summers and budget experts at the respected Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, argue that the United States should move first to expand growth — and only then begin the reduce the national debt, which even progressive economists believe is too high.

The president has to get past some of his own preconceptions. He’s spent most of the year painting a new self-portrait as the most reasonable person in the room. Moreover, he must also show, according to The Plan laid out by the president and Plouffe, his 2008 campaign manager who now occupies the small office right next to the president’s, David Axelrod’s old office, that Obama is a fiscal centrist. Not a “big spender,” the adjective inaccurately attached to him by the superior Republican propagandists.

The only significant net outlays made by the Obama administration were for measures to keep the economy from going over the cliff, some of them on programs begun in the final months of President George W. Bush’s administration. Much of the money – for the TARP program, and the automobile company bailout – has been repaid, with more to come This statement requires a belief that the new health care program will, as reliable studies have said, reduce the deficit. ( Projections of the cost of health care are chimera, what with new medical discoveries coming on line with frequency, but that’s another subject.)

The political reality is that the Republicans have pinned the label “big spender” on Obama, and he’s going to great – and somewhat damaging – lengths to remove it.

Now, the president has an excellent opportunity – perhaps his last, best one – to show that he is indeed the most reasonable man in the room, and a man of will – which does not come from letting the leaders on Capitol Hill keep on in a muddle and come up with propositions that seriously impinge on his powers to set economic policy as he sees fit.

Whether Obama would go out and fight for the taxes – or revenues, or whatever one calls them – to truly help the government grow, is a question that recent experience leaves in doubt.

But he can take a step toward regaining charge of his presidency with one word: ENOUGH.

Elizabeth Drew, a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books, is the author of 14 books. Her most recent is “Richard M. Nixon.”