casper
11-26-2009, 10:48 AM
Obama's agenda runs into economic angst in Congress
By Thomas Ferraro and Emily Kaiser
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama is paying a price for a recession that began before he took office, and fellow Democrats have started to balk at his legislative agenda and demand greater efforts to create jobs.
Some liberal Democrats even want Obama to replace his economic team while moderates fear his bid to overhaul healthcare and stem global warming -- two top priorities -- may mean more fiscal hard times, at least in the short term.
In one sign of the angst on Capitol Hill, a group of black Democratic lawmakers last week temporarily blocked a bill to tighten financial regulation, another Obama priority, signaling they believe more help is urgently needed for the unemployed.
"There's a lot of anxiety among Democrats," said Anne Mathias of Concept Capital Washington Research Group, a private firm that analyzes Congress for institutional investors.
Said Mathias, "There is a sense that the president's agenda doesn't match what people think should be happening" -- focusing on the U.S. jobless rate, which hit a 26-year high of 10.2 percent last month.
One year after Obama was elected with 53 percent of the popular vote on a message of "hope and change," double-digit unemployment is sowing fear and doubt, even among those who voted for him.
With his once lofty approval rating down to about 50 percent, Obama is taking a hit for a downturn that could cost Democrats seats in next year's congressional election. The party holding the White House almost always loses seats in the next mid-term election.
Compounding problems for Democrats are polls that show the public has begun to blame them nearly as much as they do Republicans for the recession that started in December 2007, a year before the end of the Bush administration.
High unemployment has helped sustain public fury over bailouts for Wall Street firms, fueling the anger of voters and lawmakers toward the Federal Reserve and Obama's Treasury Department, which have led the financial rescue effort.
'BOOS AND CRIES OF DERISION'
Some lawmakers have gone as far as to call on Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to resign. Others have championed legislation to strip the Fed of its authority to regulate banks and open up its monetary policy decisions to audits.
To be sure, the economy has begun to grow again and Wall Street has fared better. Since Obama took office, the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index is up some 37 percent. Bank profits have surged, helped by massive infusions of public money and government guarantees. Bankers' bonuses are set to jump, too.
Yet that has made it hard for Obama to shake the perception that his administration is more interested in bailing out rich bankers than alleviating the pain among the unemployed.
Scrambling to demonstrate concern, Obama will host a jobs forum on December 3 to explore ways to get people back to work.
Plenty of people are dissatisfied, scared, even angry.
By Thomas Ferraro and Emily Kaiser
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama is paying a price for a recession that began before he took office, and fellow Democrats have started to balk at his legislative agenda and demand greater efforts to create jobs.
Some liberal Democrats even want Obama to replace his economic team while moderates fear his bid to overhaul healthcare and stem global warming -- two top priorities -- may mean more fiscal hard times, at least in the short term.
In one sign of the angst on Capitol Hill, a group of black Democratic lawmakers last week temporarily blocked a bill to tighten financial regulation, another Obama priority, signaling they believe more help is urgently needed for the unemployed.
"There's a lot of anxiety among Democrats," said Anne Mathias of Concept Capital Washington Research Group, a private firm that analyzes Congress for institutional investors.
Said Mathias, "There is a sense that the president's agenda doesn't match what people think should be happening" -- focusing on the U.S. jobless rate, which hit a 26-year high of 10.2 percent last month.
One year after Obama was elected with 53 percent of the popular vote on a message of "hope and change," double-digit unemployment is sowing fear and doubt, even among those who voted for him.
With his once lofty approval rating down to about 50 percent, Obama is taking a hit for a downturn that could cost Democrats seats in next year's congressional election. The party holding the White House almost always loses seats in the next mid-term election.
Compounding problems for Democrats are polls that show the public has begun to blame them nearly as much as they do Republicans for the recession that started in December 2007, a year before the end of the Bush administration.
High unemployment has helped sustain public fury over bailouts for Wall Street firms, fueling the anger of voters and lawmakers toward the Federal Reserve and Obama's Treasury Department, which have led the financial rescue effort.
'BOOS AND CRIES OF DERISION'
Some lawmakers have gone as far as to call on Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to resign. Others have championed legislation to strip the Fed of its authority to regulate banks and open up its monetary policy decisions to audits.
To be sure, the economy has begun to grow again and Wall Street has fared better. Since Obama took office, the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index is up some 37 percent. Bank profits have surged, helped by massive infusions of public money and government guarantees. Bankers' bonuses are set to jump, too.
Yet that has made it hard for Obama to shake the perception that his administration is more interested in bailing out rich bankers than alleviating the pain among the unemployed.
Scrambling to demonstrate concern, Obama will host a jobs forum on December 3 to explore ways to get people back to work.
Plenty of people are dissatisfied, scared, even angry.