Spending Daily | March 13, 2013

Video: “Obama: ‘No,’ My Budget Won’t Be Balanced”
In and ABC News interview, President Obama said his budget would not be balanced. Watch the video from The Washington Free Beacon here.

Obama’s Budget Coming Week of April 8, More Than Two Months Late
Bloomberg reports, “President Barack Obama will send his fiscal 2014 budget to Congress the week of April 8, an administration official said today, more than two months late. The president’s spending blueprint was due on Feb. 4. The administration said last month that the debate over taxes and spending at the end of last year, combined with across-the-board spending cuts that kicked in March 1, would delay its release. … The president has said he’s planning to again seek many of the same proposals for spending and for deficit reduction that were contained in last year’s $3.8 trillion budget, which was never adopted by Congress.”

Poll: Obama Approval Down on Handling of Economy
According to The Washington Post, “The afterglow of President Obama’s reelection and inauguration appears to have vanished as increasingly negative views among Americans about his stewardship of the economy have forced his public approval rating back down to the 50 percent mark, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. In December, just after he won a second term, Obama held an 18-percentage-point advantage over congressional Republicans on the question of whom the public trusted more to deal with the economy. Now, it’s a far more even split — 44 percent to 40 percent, with a slight edge for the president — but the share of those saying they have confidence in ‘neither’ has ticked up into double digits. The poll contains ample evidence of the disillusionment voters feel toward both sides amid a sense of continuing dysfunction in Washington, which since December has been grappling with fiscal crises and deadlines of its own making.”

Republicans, Democrats Present “Clashing Budgets”
The Hill reports, “House Republicans and Senate Democrats unveiled clashing budgets Tuesday that highlight the ideological chasm between the two parties on taxes, spending and the size of government. The plan from Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), chairman of the House Budget Committee, would slice spending by $5.7 trillion, cut the top tax rate to 25 percent and balance the budget in 10 years. Its Democratic counterpart, from Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (Wash.), raises nearly $1 trillion in new taxes, adds new stimulus spending and does not project any date at which balance will be reached.”

Budget Comparison: “Apples to Bicycles”
David Nather writes in POLITICO, “Democrats and Republicans have put together their dream budgets — political documents that are more like wish lists than usable road maps for the future of government spending. Both have no chance of becoming law, but they do help explain the impasse over spending and debt in Washington. The two plans — one by Republican Paul Ryan and the other by Democrat Patty Murray — aren’t even apples and oranges. They’re more like apples and bicycles. Ryan’s budget shoots to balance the budget in 10 years by slashing health care spending. Murray’s plan, which Democrats outlined in bare-bones form Tuesday, seeks to lower deficits by raising $1 trillion in new revenues and leaving out big entitlement changes but doesn’t take on balancing the budget.”

Senate Dems Clash With Obama on Entitlements
The Hill reports, “Liberal Democrats challenged President Obama on Tuesday over his willingness to cut Social Security benefits. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said he and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), among others, challenged Obama on the so-called ‘chained CPI’ — a change in the way Social Security benefits are calculated. Obama has said he is open to chained CPI as part of a ’grand bargain’ that would include spending cuts as well as new revenue. And he didn’t back down from that support during a closed-door meeting with Senate Democrats, despite pushback from Harkin and Sanders. Harkin said the message from Obama was ‘basically, things are open for negotiation’ in pursuit of a grand bargain. ‘The president sort of talked about being willing to make some changes here so we can improve someother things over here’ when Sanders raised the issue, Harkin told reporters. In previous efforts to negotiate a grand bargain with House Republicans, Obama had supported raising the Medicare eligibility age. The White House has since said that Obama would not support that proposal. Harkin said Obama didn’t explicitly rule out raising the Medicare age, but implied that the policy has fallen out of favor. ‘I didn’t hear a commitment, but I spoke about that,’ Harkin said. ‘He didn’t make a commitment, but he seemed to indicate that yes, there are other ways of solving the entitlement problem without doing that.’”

“Obama Tells Democrats They Must Be Open to Entitlement Changes”
Bloomberg reports, “President Barack Obama told Senate Democrats that they should be open to changes in entitlement programs to achieve a long-term budget deal, according to several lawmakers who attended a meeting with him on Capitol Hill today. Iowa Senator Tom Harkin said Obama told Democrats during the 90-minute meeting that he wanted a broad, bipartisan deficit-reduction deal this year. Harkin said Obama rebuffed his demand, joined by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, for an assurance that Medicare and Social Security benefits would be remain untouched in any ‘grand bargain’ agreement.”

In Talk With Dems, Obama Stands Firm 
The Hill reports, “Obama stood firm Tuesday when pressed to back away from benefit cuts during the meeting with the Senate Democratic Conference, according to lawmakers who attended. Democrats emerged from the Senate’s Mike Mansfield Room publicly declaring party unity. … ‘Most of the conversation I caught was on Social Security,’ Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said, describing the back-and-forth on entitlement reform. ‘He’s been clear in the past that he’s willing to take a look at some aspects of Social Security.’ Some Democrats pressed Obama to back away from benefit cuts and instead support tax increases as the sole solution for prolonging the program’s solvency. Obama had discussed entitlement reform with a dozen Senate Republicans over a private dinner last week. ‘I urged him not to cut Social Security and benefits for disabled veterans,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), an independent who caucuses with Democrats. ‘He is concerned about the long-term solvency of Social Security and so am I. But I think he recognized there are different ways to approach it. You can bring more revenue into the program or you can cut benefits.’”

“Defense officials press Congress for budget flexibility”
Reuters reports, “Senior defense officials said on Tuesday they were doing their best to offset the worst impacts of $46 billion in budget cuts that began this month, but they will have to slash personnel and weapons programs if reductions keep coming in future years. Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told a conference of industry officials that the Pentagon was facing a ‘double absurdity’ of having to implement across-the-board budget cuts generally seen as bad policy while being funded for last year’s spending levels and priorities. … The department is also being squeezed by financial constraints imposed by the legislative mechanism Congress used to fund the government through March 27. Unable to reach a budget deal, they passed a resolution that extended funding based on last year’s spending and priorities. As a result, the Pentagon has more money for weapons programs than it requested but is facing a multibillion-dollar shortfall for operations and maintenance. Pentagon officials are urging Congress to give them an appropriation that would shift the funding into the right accounts for this year’s priorities.”

Debt Ceiling Crisis Still Ahead After Spending Fight
Roll Call reports, “Conservatives are privately debating how much space to give House leaders to follow through on promises made at their Williamsburg, Va., retreat in January, with a wait-and-see approach embraced by key veterans and a smaller movement of mostly newer lawmakers wanting to push leadership harder. The divide is behind the mixed signals in the past week as Republicans provided a surprisingly unified vote on the continuing resolution followed quickly by bold threats by conservatives to bring down rule votes. The debate has big implications for how Republicans will approach future spending showdowns such as the next debt ceiling increase and shows there are rumblings beneath the surface during a period of relative tranquility for the GOP conference.”

Ryan Budget Includes Defense Spending Caps
The Wall Street Journal reports, “Rep. Paul Ryan proposed a Republican budget blueprint Tuesday that included caps on defense spending, a shift for his party that could provide a point of compromise with Democrats. The House Budget Committee chairman’s proposal marks a significant reversal for the GOP since just last fall. Mitt Romney, the party’s 2012 presidential nominee, who made Mr. Ryan his running mate, campaigned on a plan to markedly increase the Pentagon budget, saying it should represent no less than 4% of gross domestic product. Mr. Ryan’s budget calls for $560.2 billion in defense spending in 2014, roughly $100 billion less than the 4% formula. Over 10 years, he would spend at least $2.3 trillion less on defense than he and Mr. Romney advocated. The defense proposal was a rare development on a day when House Republicans and Senate Democrats displayed deep policy differences as they released portions of their budget proposals for the next fiscal year, which starts in October.”

Feds Under Pressure From Business Groups to Explore Cost of Regulation
The Hill reports, “Federal agencies are under mounting pressure from business groups to run rigorous economic tests before handing down regulations. As the focus in Washington shifts focus from legislation to regulation in President Obama’s second term, the private sector is calling for strengthened requirements on agencies to measure the costs and benefits of new rules. ­ A study issued Tuesday by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for example, urged regulators to adopt ‘rigorous cost-benefit analysis to arrive at more rational decision-making,’ especially as they consider the hundreds of rules required by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. ‘This is 400 rules happening at once across 20 agencies,’ David Hirschmann, president of the Chamber’s Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness, said of Dodd-Frank. … But consumer groups argue that the federal government already relies too heavily on the guesswork of economic analysis. They say it is often easier to document costs of new rules than less tangible benefits such as improved quality of life. Flawed economic projections, they argue, are gumming up the works for urgently needed rules to protect public safety and health.Matters could get worse if economic considerations become more firmly embedded into rule-making decisions, they contend.”