Debt Plan Ideas Draw Scorn of Liberals and Tea Party

Jackie Calmes

November 11, 2010

WASHINGTON — By putting deep spending cuts and substantial tax increases on the table, President Obama’s bipartisan debt-reduction commission has exposed fissures in both parties, underscoring the volatile nature and long odds of any attempt to address the nation’s long-term budget problems.

Among Democrats, liberals are in near revolt against the White House over the issue, even as substantive and political forces push Mr. Obama to attack chronic deficits in a serious way. At the same time, Republicans face intense pressure from their conservative base and the Tea Party movement to reject any deal that includes tax increases, leaving their leaders with little room to maneuver in any negotiation and at risk of being blamed by voters for not doing their part.

Mr. Obama, on a diplomatic tour of Asia in which the fiscal condition of the United States has been a recurring backdrop, maintained his silence on Thursday about the particulars of the draft deficit-reduction plan the commission chairmen had released the day before.

“The only way to make those tough choices historically has been if both parties are willing to move forward together,” he said at a news conference in Seoul, South Korea. “And so before anybody starts shooting down proposals, I think we need to listen, we need to gather up all the facts. I think we have to be straight with the American people.”

Mr. Obama’s stance was at the request of the chairmen, Alan K. Simpson, a former Republican Senate leader, and Erskine B. Bowles, a White House chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, who wanted to avoid any statements that might prejudice the panel’s deliberations before its Dec. 1 deadline. But it was also a response to the outcry from both conservatives against taxes and from Mr. Obama’s liberal base against the plan’s proposed long-term cuts in domestic programs across the board, including Social Security and Medicare.

The liberals are already frustrated with the White House on issues like the Afghanistan war and what to do about the Bush-era tax cuts, which expire Dec. 31, and are increasingly uncertain about Mr. Obama’s willingness to fight for long-held party priorities. That question loomed over a meeting at the White House on Thursday between progressive activists and administration aides about strategy for dealing with the Bush tax cuts in the Congressional lame-duck session that begins next week.

Several activists who attended said in interviews that they sought reassurance after a report Thursday suggesting that the White House was prepared to acquiesce in extending the tax cuts for income above $250,000, as Republicans have demanded.

While David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s senior strategist, subsequently denied that the White House position had shifted, the immediate suspicion among liberals that the administration was abandoning them reflected broader insecurity among the president’s allies on the left that he would move to center for the rest of his term.

“Dealing seriously with these things is fraught with political peril for both parties, but at some point not dealing with these issues is also fraught with political peril,” Mr. Axelrod said in an interview.

So riled are some liberals about the Bowles-Simpson plan that, privately, several suggested that if Mr. Obama were to embrace its major parts, he would invite a primary challenge in 2012.

Republican Congressional leaders, three of whom are on the commission, similarly remained neutral about the draft, even as conservative groups condemned its proposals to raise revenues.

To these groups, the plan’s call to drastically lower income tax rates for individuals and corporations holds no appeal. That is because the reductions are tied to proposals to restrict or repeal tax breaks for investors and corporations, with additional tens of billions of dollars in revenue left over to reduce deficits.

The Web site of Americans for Tax Reform, which is led by the influential antitax activist Grover Norquist, warned Republicans bluntly, “Support for the commission chair plan would be a violation of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, which over 235 congressmen and 41 senators have made to their constituents.”

Republicans would also be looking over their shoulders at the growing ranks of the Tea Party. Ryan Hecker, from the Houston chapter, said it would be “a big mistake” for Republicans to go along with tax increases. “I think that is something that would not sit well with members of the Tea Party,” he said.

Emboldened by their victories, Tea Party members are mobilizing for 2012 to work against any Republican who shows signs of compromising. Among Republicans who may well face rivals in the 2012 party primaries are Senators Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, Scott Brown of Massachusetts, Richard Lugar of Indiana and Orrin G. Hatch of Utah.

Mr. Lugar, who began his long Senate career as indisputably conservative but is now seen by many as a moderate as the party has turned further right, said the Tea Party was no “irresponsible fringe” in an essay this week for a publication of the Ripon Society, a moderate Republican group. But, he added, Republicans must not reflexively oppose everything Democrats propose.

“Opposing unsound administration policies remains important,” Mr. Lugar wrote, adding, “But simple, unadorned ‘opposition’ is mistaken, from both the policy and political perspectives.”

With Republicans taking charge of the House, they face pressure to go beyond campaign claims and produce a budget with cuts that live up to their promises.

“There is a ton of postelection survey evidence that the American people are fed up with rejectionism, and want the parties to work harder to find common ground,” said William A. Galston, a former adviser to Mr. Clinton. “But there’s a caveat, and this is critical: While a majority of independents, Democrats and swing voters are for compromise over standing on principle, a majority of Republican voters are against compromise and for standing on principle.”

Certainly Mr. Obama’s inclination, before the election drubbing, was to turn to major long-term reductions in projected annual deficits and to make changes that would ensure Social Security’s solvency until the end of this century. But if he chooses a path like that, he must take time to educate the public about the tradeoffs, said Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster and strategist.

“What he did in health care was he engaged Washington without first trying to engage America,” Mr. Garin said. “And on deficit reduction it has to work the other way around. For the next two years, who he is as president is as important as what he does as president.”