Obama Bets Need for Speed Trumps Risk of Overloading Congress

After his landslide electoral victory in 1964, President Lyndon Johnson acted urgently because his power would wane with time.

“This honeymoon won’t last,” Johnson said to aide Jack Valenti. “Every day I lose a little more political capital. That’s why we have to keep at it, never letting up.”

Barack Obama, who during his 2008 campaign talked about Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy, is governing more like LBJ. Halfway to the 100-day mark in his presidency, Obama has committed more than $2 trillion to stimulate the economy, rescue Citigroup Inc., American International Group Inc. and other financial companies, expand health care and wean the U.S. from its dependence on foreign oil.

“The times demanded that we had to act and had to act quickly,” says David Axelrod, a senior White House adviser. “If all you do is husband your political capital, you’re not going to really accomplish very much.”

Obama, 47, is in a race between the desire to use that capital, fueled by public-approval ratings at 60 percent, and a still-deteriorating economy that has seen the Dow Jones Industrial Average drop more than 1,300 points since his inauguration. The risk is that his efforts prove to be too much, too soon, leading to a backlash that erodes his current support.

“If he’s mistaken in his judgment about what the economy and the political system can bear, then he will end up overloading the Congress and getting less than he might have done otherwise,” says Bill Galston, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton.

Big Plans

Obama won passage of the $787 billion stimulus plan 20 days into his presidency. He outlined a budget that aims to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term and included a $634 billion “down-payment” for health-care reform.

The president, a Democrat, attacked one of the causes of the recession by pushing a $275 billion plan to cut mortgage payments for as many as 9 million struggling homeowners. He has asked Congress to come up with legislation overhauling the financial-regulatory system by April and has signaled that as much as $750 billion more may be needed to help revive credit markets.

“His 50 days is fairly equivalent of what many presidents had over their first 100 days, just because of the intensity of the crisis,” says Julian Zelizer, a history and public affairs professor at Princeton University in New Jersey.

Echoes of LBJ

Obama’s record is comparable to what Johnson, another Democrat, achieved in 1965 with his “Great Society” programs. That agenda, the most ambitious since Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, included the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the creation of Medicare and Medicaid, and a national beautification program. It also entailed a major escalation of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, which ultimately destroyed Johnson’s presidency.

For the most part, Obama has been sticking to his campaign pledges, which included ending the war in Iraq, cutting taxes for the middle class, broadening health care and achieving energy independence. Events have prompted him to adopt the other, potentially competing agenda that involves the deepest government intervention in the economy in 76 years.

“He has some genuine accomplishments at the beginning of his presidency,” says Galston, now an analyst at the Brookings Institution. “At the same time, I believe, that he has wagered his presidency on the bold course to pursuing his two agendas simultaneously.”

Falling Short

Obama has fallen short in one area: achieving bipartisanship. “Despite his substantial efforts to reach out, certainly symbolically, and to be civil, the payoff is at the moment, pretty slim,” says George Edwards, author of “The Strategic President: Persuasion and Opportunity in Presidential Leadership.” The Republican Party “seems to have found its voice in adamant opposition to Obama, and it’s gearing up for more.”

House Republicans unanimously rejected Obama’s stimulus bill; in the Senate only three Republicans voted for it. “They don’t want to miss the opportunity of a crisis to do all the things they’ve wanted to do,” says Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, a member of the House Republican leadership.

Obama’s team says it made concessions to Republicans to get the stimulus passed. “I may rue the day I say this: It’s just the price you pay for getting a deal done,” White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said on Feb. 12, the day before the bill’s final passage. “You keep mirroring your economic priorities within a political process.”

Bigger Battles

Bigger battles are likely in the coming months when debates over the president’s $3.55 trillion budget take place, especially if the economy doesn’t improve, says Ari Fleischer, who was press secretary to former President George W. Bush.

“The capitalist wing of the Republican Party will be reborn and will find its voice,” Fleischer says. “It just takes time.”

The opposition won’t be limited to Republicans. Obama, who called Wall Street bonuses “shameful,” will have to reconcile his own rules for executive pay with a plan for more stringent curbs proposed by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, has expressed concern over the decision to leave a residual force of as many as 50,000 troops in Iraq. And House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland says Obama can’t tell Congress what to do when it comes to inserting lawmakers’ pet projects in spending bills.