Obama Herded to the Center

Republicans plan to initiate an investigation into “one of the most corrupt” U.S. administrations.

Barack Obama recently executed major shakeups in his administration. According to experts, the president will promote a less liberal agenda. This is not only a recognition of the altered political landscape — Obama essentially is making a bid for reelection in 2012. He wants to repeat Bill Clinton’s economic successes. Republicans have set their own sights on the voters: They are trying to make Obama and his team a symbol of corruption and waste.

The House of Representatives was to take a vote tomorrow on the controversial health care reforms, which were adopted last year. However, because of the tragic event in Arizona, this battle between the Republicans and Democrats is being put on hold. The outcome of the battle, it would seem, is known: In the case that the House of Representatives — in which the Republicans number 63 congressmen more than the Democrats — approves repealing the reforms, the initiative will stall in the Senate. After all, President Obama indicated that he would veto legislation that repeals the law on health care. However, what is happening is glaring evidence of the mood on Capitol Hill: After the traditional assurances of preparedness for bipartisan cooperation, the two major U.S. parties continue the war.

As before, the main battlefield is economic. Already in the early days of the 112th Congress, Democrats emphatically are saying that the Republicans are unable to fulfill their pre-election promises and cut the budget deficit by $100 billion in one year. It is not entirely clear whether they are talking about the calendar or the fiscal year, which in the U.S. begins on Oct. 1. Indeed, we must admit that the Republicans have not thoroughly explained by which measures they can guarantee such savings.

Moreover, according to estimates by an independent supervisory body, the Congressional Budget Office, repealing the health care reform — that which Republicans strive for — would increase the deficit by $230 billion over the course of 10 years. Republican Congressman Tom Price gave a simple answer to this — purge the current composition of the CBO. Conservative experts all the while are testing the public’s reaction to possible spending cuts: For example, Heritage Foundation analyst Brian Riedl suggests savings by reducing subsidies to large-scale farms and producers of ethanol, reducing the payment of expenditures of federal employees and even economizing on the authorities’ computer systems.

Republicans are determined to let slide neither the Democratic administration’s economic miscalculations nor its political blunders. In this regard, revealing information appeared in the American press about a plan by Obama’s detractors to initiate a congressional investigation into his activities as “one of the most corrupt presidents in modern times.” The author of this characterization and chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Darrell Issa, later clarified that he did not speak of Obama personally, but rather of his administration. Nevertheless, according to USA Today, Issa is determined to investigate the activities of authorities during the mortgage crisis and the government’s influence on the process of creating jobs, and to explain the reasons for its inability to establish the causes of the financial crisis. Corruption in Afghanistan, the WikiLeaks scandal and problems of food and drug safety also raise questions for Issa. By the way, a Republican-controlled House of Representatives once tried to impeach Democratic President Bill Clinton.

Obama himself, as the analysts note, is already preparing for the battle to come with Republicans in two years. “He learned the lessons of November’s congressional elections and is trying to correct his course,” said Deputy Director of the Institute for USA and Canada Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences Victor Kremenyuk to Nezavisimaya Gazeta. Kremenyuk was commenting on the new appointment in the Obama administration. We recall that Gene Sperling, one of the authors of the transformation of the budget deficit to the budget surplus under President Clinton, recently became Director of the National Economic Council. And experienced Chicago banker William Daley was appointed as White House Chief of Staff — also from the Clinton administration. Daley and Sperling are considered centrists, and their appointments speak to Obama’s shift closer to the political center. Obviously, the president is determined to win back the support of the voters who punished his party in November for excessive liberalism.