Breaking the Deals

Prickly situation.

“We’re going to do what we have to do to get a bill out of the House and Senate,” said James Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. As for Obama’s wish list of deletions: “We’ll certainly keep it in mind as we pull together a final bill.”

That tepid salute underscores the prickliness with which many senators have greeted what they consider Obama’s meddling in their business and raises questions about how successful the president will be in erasing the special projects from final legislation.

It also highlights a spat between a White House and Senate, dominated by the same party, that the president has ignited just as he needs to garner support to finally push his No. 1 legislative goal to passage over monolithic Republican opposition and nervous Democrats.

Obama’s proposal to eliminate state-specific items comes with polls finding heightened public opposition to backroom political deals. Republicans have been happy to fan that discontent. Many Democrats, particularly House moderates facing tight re-election battles this fall, are eager to dissociate themselves from such spending.

The president wants votes from House Democrats “who were deeply offended by those provisions in the Senate bill,” said Sheryl Skolnick, who analyzes federal health legislation for CRT Capital Group of Stamford, Conn. “Clearly the math was, ‘I gain more in the House by taking out those provisions than I lose in the Senate.’”

Obama has railed against the “ugly process” of cutting special deals, but the president and his top advisers were prime players in negotiations on the agreements to win votes and push the legislation forward.

Here’s the problem for Reid… he cut those deals to get the legislation passed.  Now, even if they reverse the deals, those senators can’t take their votes back and are hung out to dry.  If that happens, Reid will have zero credibility to make any deals in the future to get anything done.  Once again, Obama is wanting everyone else to take the pain and sacrifices for his benefit.