White House works to quell Dem dissent (The Hill )

[chill_wind]

White House works to quell Dem dissent
By Alexander Bolton - 09/15/11 05:03 PM ET

Senior administration officials met with Senate Democrats for an hour and a half on Thursday to answer their complaints about President Obama’s jobs bill.

Democratic lawmakers voiced objections to several of the president’s proposals to pay for the $447 billion stimulus package, including an elimination of tax breaks for the oil-and-gas industry.

David Plouffe, a senior adviser to the president, acknowledged after a marathon meeting in the Senate's Mansfield Room that not all Democrats are sold on the plan.

(for more details, read the rest)


Senate Democrats were incensed in July when news emerged that Obama was on the cusp of striking a grand deficit-reduction bargain with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) that would have cut Medicare.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/181909-senior-white-house-officials-work-to-quell-democratic-dissent-over-jobs-bill

[jaxx]

1. While Alexander Bolton fans the flames.

The Hill is so biased they are harder to read every day. And notice those Dems objections....their one issues....oil perks, raising taxes on the rich.

[chill_wind]

7. I like the Hill for the most part. I'll take them over Politico

for example any day, but I like TPM too for political news. I don't read the regular columnists pages or opinion section, though. Plenty of biased crap there, I'm sure, just looking at the lineup.

Just like to read the run of the mill news beat reporters, and there seem to be a lot of them. The WH and Congress reads them. Congress talks to them, and I like reading some of the inside stuff and most of their stories carry plenty of direct quotes. As for Alexander Bolton, I don't know that he has any special reputation, other than he did get a couple awards in the past couple years from the Society of Professional Journalists.

http://thehill.com/homenews/news/103725-the-hill-receives-12-journalism-awards
http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowldc/tag/alexander-bolton

This year the Society of Professional Journalists gave him two awards for excellence in journalism in the categories of general news and news analysis.

SPJ honored Mr. Bolton’s work in 2010 with an excellence in journalism award for his reporting on Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter’s switch to the Democratic Party the previous year.

In 2009, the group gave him an excellence in journalism award for his coverage of the battle for superdelegates in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary.

http://lipstickandpolitics.net/?p=181

ETA- link edit

[gateley]

2. What a mess. nt

[ProSense]

3. So

<...>

Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) pointedly told Plouffe and National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling, who also attended the meeting, that the administration is wrong to target the revenues of oil-and-gas companies.

<...>

Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) has said Congress should not increase taxes on ordinary income, calling the idea terrible.

<...>

Obama would pay for his plan by limiting itemized deductions for wealthy individuals and families and increasing taxes on hedge fund managers, in addition to eliminating tax breaks for oil-and-gas companies.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) has also come out strongly opposed to higher taxes on the oil industry.

<...>

...working to get Senate Democrats to vote to end oil subsidies and tax cuts for the rich is now an attempt to "quell dissent"?

[Arctic Dave]

6. Mark is wrong on this one.

Sure, he is only doing this so he can tell the knuckldraggers up here that he isn't out to get the poor old oil companies. The fact of the matter is the state picks up a large part of the tab if they don't strike oil, not just the feds.
My thoughts, screw the oil companies, start making them put more of their own skin in the game if they are going to reap such huge profits.

Note: I work in the oilfields in Alaska.

[Lasher]

4. Is this dissent supposed to be a big surprise?

"Now, I realize there are some in my party who don’t think we should make any changes at all to Medicare and Medicaid..."

[chill_wind]

5. IMHO, I'm glad he made it a priority to get out of DC and pitch

a plan to voters, but it seems like the reactions of some Dem factions might not have been all that unforseeable. I think he should have met with them a little sooner. They aren't the only Dems ever to complain of not being kept in the loop on policy negotiations by Obama and the thinking with his strategies. I remember reading last week the House's Progressive Caucus had also asked to meet with him before he came out with his jobs speech (they had been working on proposals as well) and were similarly left out of the loop, although more of the complaining does seem to be coming from the Senate side.

It just doesn't seem all that politically surprising that not all special interest Senate Dems will support all parts of the current jobs bill equally strongly, but it especially doesn't seem surprising that if the WH has a hard time herding cats under any usual circumstances, maybe a little more pre-game prep and collaboration with his own party would go a longer way on efforts as big-ticket as this one. As opposed to having to publicly tamp down so much disaffection in his own ranks- and having all the 'sitdowns' after the fact. Especially after letting this much time for such building opposition and resentment to pass before finally getting around to it. Just IMHO.