Obama Promotes Budget, Lobbies Democratic Senators
NY MEETING
WENY-TV
Lindsay Perna
Boston University Washington News Service
March 25, 2009
WASHINGTON – President Obama played lobbyist on Capitol Hill Wednesday, outlining for Democratic senators his priorities in his budget.
Obama asked the senators to preserve education, health care, energy and middle-class tax relief as they strip down the hefty budget, according to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). He said the Senate would vote on the budget next week.
After the meeting, senators streamed through the hallways of the Senate side of the Capitol discussing major slashes to Obama’s $3.6 trillion budgetary blueprint.
Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said the President understood immediately that Conrad “would have to make adjustments” to the budget.
“I know it’s a new concept to insist that things be paid for,” Conrad said. “I make no apologies—we have to pay for things.”
Conrad said he would extend all middle-class tax cuts—though the costs would have to be offset in a long-term deficit.
Overall discretionary spending has only increased by 5.3 percent in his version of the budget, Conrad said.
“We’re going to sink or swim together,” Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said after exiting the Mansfield Room where senators met with Obama.
Schumer said there was broad support for Obama’s requests to Congress.
The New York senior senator said Making Work Pay, a tax cut for working families in Obama’s budget, is important.
“Everyone has to give a little bit,” he said.
As the members-only elevators shut, Schumer emphasized that “it was a very friendly meeting.”
The junior senator for New York, Kirsten Gillibrand, exited the meeting without answering questions.
Lingering after the Democratic senators dispersed, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa..) commented on whether he thinks the bill to recoup executive bonuses would go to a vote in the Senate before the congressional recess that starts April 6.
“I doubt it,” Specter said. “If it was on life support, it would be healthier.”
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