Democrats focus on defense

Opinion: January 10, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

As the new Congress convenes, Democrats may feel like Big Ten football players or hockey’s Pittsburgh Penguins did after teams from Texas Christian University to the Washington Capitals put them on the defensive last weekend and hammered them into submission.

In the House, Nancy Pelosi’s ritual handing of the gavel to new Speaker John Boehner, adoption of a spate of new rules and early scheduling of a move to repeal health care reform vividly exemplify the transformation. Vows by Rep. Darrell Issa’s investigators promise to keep administration lawyers busy.

Even the effort by Senate Democrats to modify that body’s delaying procedures reflects a party seeking to protect its position, rather than enhance it.

And in the third branch of government, a plethora of suits challenging President Obama’s health reform law could cripple one of the top achievements of his administration’s first two years.

Still, after procedural issues are resolved and despite the continuing threats from Issa and the courts, Obama retains the power to influence the congressional agenda in a way that may determine whether Democrats stay on the defensive for the next two years or can regain the offensive, despite November’s election setbacks.

More specifically, how Obama deals with the federal budget deficit later this month in his State of the Union address and the budget he submits will demonstrate the degree to which his administration can shape the course of the new Congress.

Period of consolidation

Even without the Republicans’ stunning electoral gains — winning a House majority, six more Senate seats and a lion’s share of state legislatures — the next two years loomed as a period of consolidation for Obama’s administration. Third years often are, especially after a significant opening period of enacting important new legislation.

The pace slowed significantly after the first two years for the historically significant administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson and Ronald Reagan amid growing political resistance and a desire to consolidate the initial achievements.

If anything, however, the GOP’s November successes have forced the White House to take a more aggressive tone in its legislation program, lest it cede all initiative to the newly empowered Republicans.

The GOP offensive has three main aspects:

Undo as much of Obama’s agenda as possible, either by overturning prior actions like the health care measure or by withholding funds to implement programs enacted in the first two years.

Those efforts promise all-out Democratic opposition, and most are likely headed for ultimate failure.

Investigate actions of Obama administrators and regulators in a search for malfeasance and misfeasance. Issa set the tone by labeling this “one of the most corrupt administrations” and cited its handling of economic bailout funds and expansion of government.

Democrats hope to show his efforts are more political than substantive.

Cut spending on existing federal programs, both by revising the measures that provide the actual funds to government departments and leveraging measures like the forthcoming vote on raising the legal ceiling on the federal debt to force cutbacks.

These could provide the most significant tests. Obama needs to offer serious alternatives to GOP initiatives, including both a significant short-term deficit reduction program and long-term proposals to curb future entitlement costs and eliminate some of the “special interest” provisions that have bloated the tax code.

Some aspects of entitlement reform, such as limiting tax breaks for wealthier Social Security recipients and raising future retirement ages, could attract bipartisan support.

The rest are likely to produce open combat.

Until now, Republicans have spoken in generalities about cutting spending and avoided specifics, concentrating on such politically symbolic but fiscally insignificant proposals as eliminating earmarks and cutting congressional staff spending.

To make the massive cuts they seek, Republicans will have to reduce popular middle-class programs like college scholarships and curb aid to states and localities already suffering from the economic recession.

Not only could this slow the recovery, but the House GOP is paving the way for increasing the deficit by exempting tax cuts from the requirement that both tax cuts and spending increases needed to be offset by tax increases or spending cuts.

The GOP’s leaders may discover, when their sweeping proposals reach the Senate, that a good defense still can stop a good offense.

Carl P. Leubsdorf is the former Washington bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune.