Orszag Playing Hardball

Checkmate:

President Obama’s budget director said the White House would consider using a Senate procedural tactic so that only 50 votes would be rquired to pass major healthcare and energy reforms.

Peter Orszag, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, said the administration would prefer not to use the budget reconciliation process to push through its package.
But he added: “We have to keep everything on the table. We want to get these…. important things done this year.” Orszag called healthcare in particular “the key to our fiscal future.”

Orszag made the comments on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”

That’s a clear message to the Republicans that they aren’t going to use the filibuster to stop Obama’s top priorities. If they want to have any influence over the health and energy reforms, they’re going to have to work on the legislation in committee. There is no possibility of stopping the bills from passing because, if the bills are threatened, Obama will move them into the budget reconciliation process. That move won’t be popular even among many Democrats in the Senate, but it’s now up to the Republicans whether it happens or not.

12 Comments

Zandar1 on March 1, 2009 at 1:23 pm

The Republicans show every sign of being that stupid, BooMan.

They will say that Orszag and Obama are bluffing. They will attack it as un-American and call it a power grab beyond anything Bush ever tried. They will further the notion that the only reason the GOP exists in 2009 is to stop Obama.

And the American people will laugh at them.

As you said, checkmate.

BooMan on March 1, 2009 at 4:55 pm

yep. The whining should be exquisite.

idredit on March 1, 2009 at 1:24 pm

Newsday editorial via TPM: Can Ya Handle the Truth?

Obama’s budget gives it to U.S. straight

President Barack Obama gambled big Thursday when he unveiled his first budget. He treated taxpayers like grown-ups. His extraordinary candor about what Washington spends, and what he thinks it will cost to get the economy out of the tank and on course for a sound future, is refreshing.

The figures are huge – $3.6 trillion to be spent in 2010, with almost $1.2 trillion of it to be borrowed. And the spending plan signals a sharp, maybe even historic, change of direction on taxes and the role of government. By baldly laying his cards on the table, Obama is betting that the public can handle the truth. It needs to

[.]

First, he ditched Washington-style budget sleight-of-hand and honestly laid out what the government will actually spend. It has been common for presidents from both parties to employ gimmicks to make their choices appear more palatable.

Obama explicitly rejected some of the more egregious budgeting practices of his immediate predecessor. President George W. Bush never included the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in his budgets, for instance, opting instead to treat those military campaigns as emergencies and fund them off the books. He took a similar approach with the entirely predictable $60 billion it cost the Treasury for each year that Congress spared 20 million taxpayers the expensive bite of the alternative minimum tax. Bush also budgeted nothing for federal disaster response, though natural disasters invariably occur. Obama included all three things in his 10-year budget.

More

rootless2 on March 1, 2009 at 6:34 pm

The Republics are figuring out that the nice guys are talking over their heads to their ex-constituents and are not the weak kneed wet-behind the ears suckers that both the right wing and the “activist left” insisted they were.

billjpa on March 1, 2009 at 5:00 pm

I will raise that checkmate and double it!
Orzag has been getting lots of tv time and he is so steady that the interviewers just mumble in response.
What I like best is that he just doesn’t sspout platitudes but instead, he has the “FACT”! Steady, just steady!

BooMan on March 1, 2009 at 5:55 pm

yeah, I’m such a geek that I’d noticed him from his testimony as head of the Congressional Budget Office. I thought he was great, then.
- Real History Lisa on March 1, 2009 at 7:17 pm
  
  Someone on Obama’s team evidently noticed that too, and good thing!!

Dongi 2 on March 1, 2009 at 6:03 pm

They are not ambrosia but republican w(h)ines are mighty exquisite.

Dongi 2 on March 1, 2009 at 6:05 pm

I mean mighty fine. Sorry, BooMan, didn’t mean to plagiarize.

coach215 on March 1, 2009 at 7:14 pm

Perhaps we have finally found the anti-Dave Stockman.

Real History Lisa on March 1, 2009 at 7:17 pm

I was amazed when I saw Orszag this morning. He was not only articulate, he was absolutely ready to fight the spin war with both barrels. He said something like, I dispute the notion that cutting taxes for the rich and subsidizing corporations is the way out of this mess. We’ve done that for eight years and look where we are. I mean, he was not mincing any words. He was hardcore. Woohoo, we got a live one here. I love it!!!

soj on March 1, 2009 at 7:36 pm

Just as a side note, I rarely hear/see video clips from the news but I swore I heard people pronounce his name as “Orshag”.

As a point of reference, with his family name being Hungarian the letter combination “sz” is pronounced as a simple “s”. Therefore it would be more like “Orsag” when pronounced.

Ironically in Hungarian an ordinary “s” however (as in the name Janos for example) is pronounced “sh”.

Pax

Zandar1 on March 1, 2009 at 1:23 pm

The Republicans show every sign of being that stupid, BooMan.

They will say that Orszag and Obama are bluffing. They will attack it as un-American and call it a power grab beyond anything Bush ever tried. They will further the notion that the only reason the GOP exists in 2009 is to stop Obama.

And the American people will laugh at them.

As you said, checkmate.
- BooMan on March 1, 2009 at 4:55 pm
  
  yep. The whining should be exquisite.
idredit on March 1, 2009 at 1:24 pm

Newsday editorial via TPM: Can Ya Handle the Truth?

Obama’s budget gives it to U.S. straight

President Barack Obama gambled big Thursday when he unveiled his first budget. He treated taxpayers like grown-ups. His extraordinary candor about what Washington spends, and what he thinks it will cost to get the economy out of the tank and on course for a sound future, is refreshing.

The figures are huge – $3.6 trillion to be spent in 2010, with almost $1.2 trillion of it to be borrowed. And the spending plan signals a sharp, maybe even historic, change of direction on taxes and the role of government. By baldly laying his cards on the table, Obama is betting that the public can handle the truth. It needs to

[.]

First, he ditched Washington-style budget sleight-of-hand and honestly laid out what the government will actually spend. It has been common for presidents from both parties to employ gimmicks to make their choices appear more palatable.

Obama explicitly rejected some of the more egregious budgeting practices of his immediate predecessor. President George W. Bush never included the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in his budgets, for instance, opting instead to treat those military campaigns as emergencies and fund them off the books. He took a similar approach with the entirely predictable $60 billion it cost the Treasury for each year that Congress spared 20 million taxpayers the expensive bite of the alternative minimum tax. Bush also budgeted nothing for federal disaster response, though natural disasters invariably occur. Obama included all three things in his 10-year budget.

More
- rootless2 on March 1, 2009 at 6:34 pm
  
  The Republics are figuring out that the nice guys are talking over their heads to their ex-constituents and are not the weak kneed wet-behind the ears suckers that both the right wing and the “activist left” insisted they were.
billjpa on March 1, 2009 at 5:00 pm

I will raise that checkmate and double it!
Orzag has been getting lots of tv time and he is so steady that the interviewers just mumble in response.
What I like best is that he just doesn’t sspout platitudes but instead, he has the “FACT”! Steady, just steady!
- BooMan on March 1, 2009 at 5:55 pm
  
  yeah, I’m such a geek that I’d noticed him from his testimony as head of the Congressional Budget Office. I thought he was great, then.
  - Real History Lisa on March 1, 2009 at 7:17 pm
    
    Someone on Obama’s team evidently noticed that too, and good thing!!
Dongi 2 on March 1, 2009 at 6:03 pm

They are not ambrosia but republican w(h)ines are mighty exquisite.
Dongi 2 on March 1, 2009 at 6:05 pm

I mean mighty fine. Sorry, BooMan, didn’t mean to plagiarize.
coach215 on March 1, 2009 at 7:14 pm

Perhaps we have finally found the anti-Dave Stockman.
Real History Lisa on March 1, 2009 at 7:17 pm

I was amazed when I saw Orszag this morning. He was not only articulate, he was absolutely ready to fight the spin war with both barrels. He said something like, I dispute the notion that cutting taxes for the rich and subsidizing corporations is the way out of this mess. We’ve done that for eight years and look where we are. I mean, he was not mincing any words. He was hardcore. Woohoo, we got a live one here. I love it!!!
soj on March 1, 2009 at 7:36 pm

Just as a side note, I rarely hear/see video clips from the news but I swore I heard people pronounce his name as “Orshag”.

As a point of reference, with his family name being Hungarian the letter combination “sz” is pronounced as a simple “s”. Therefore it would be more like “Orsag” when pronounced.

Ironically in Hungarian an ordinary “s” however (as in the name Janos for example) is pronounced “sh”.

Pax

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