President Barack Obama wants new Wall Street regulations on his desk by the second anniversary of the financial crisis, aides say. | AP photo composite by POLITICO The president plans spring offensive

An emboldened President Barack Obama will take a stronger hand with Congress in coming weeks, planning to push lawmakers to pass new regulations for Wall Street by September, the second anniversary of the meltdown, aides tell POLITICO.

The spring offensive, if successful, would allow Obama to claim concrete progress on all of his domestic priorities, despite a "lost year" between the passage of a stimulus package in February 2009 and the signing of health reform last week.


Some Democratic leaders hope to have financial-regulatory reform on the president’s desk even sooner — by Memorial Day, a timeline the White House considers doable.

During protracted negotiations over the health care bill, Obama was criticized for giving congressional leaders too much leeway and too little direction and for bending too easily to the timetables of Capitol Hill.

No more. Aides say that with the momentum from the most complex domestic bill to pass Congress in 45 years, Obama now will push Congress to close campaign-finance loopholes opened by the Citizens United case, adopt his overhaul of the No Child Left Behind education bill and perhaps even tackle a clean-energy bill.

“He goes into these into these negotiations, and into these legislative battles, with a stronger hand because people understand that he’s going to fight for what he believes in,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said in an interview. “Congress proved to itself that it’s well within their power to do the big things that’ll bring about the type of change that they were elected to bring.”

Gibbs contended that Republicans may be more gettable now: “Understanding that what they got out of the health care thing was virtually nothing, I think they may think twice on financial reform. There’s certainly ample evidence that their 'strategery' needs a little reform.”

Republicans claim that by making his first recess appointments — from Camp David on Saturday, half a day after Congress left town — Obama cemented the ill will between the parties.

Gibbs said that following last week’s triumphs on health, student loans and a “new START” treaty with Russia, “The American people see somebody who’s a persistent fighter and a leader who makes good on his promises.”

Gibbs said that Obama told him the night of the House vote that when people bet against him, they don’t realize that “I’m just that stubborn.”