Budget day feels a lot like Groundhog Day
President Barack Obama is releasing his budget on Groundhog Day. You remember Bill Murray in the “Groundhog Day” movie, reliving the same day over and over?
President Obama was stuck in a routine, too. Year after year, his budget bowed to sequestration cuts. “There was the same script over and over again, where he was trying to put out a budget to meet the Republicans halfway,” says Mike Konczal, a fellow at the progressive Roosevelt Institute.
He says this year, President Obama is departing from the script. In fact, in an op-ed in the Huffington Post, the President says his budget “will fully reverse the sequestration cuts.”
Konczal is delighted. “Yeah, I think it’s a great move,” he says. But even some Democrats say President Obama may be going a bit too off-script, and could risk alienating voters worried about the deficit.
“There are limits as to how far down the President can go down this road without incurring some political risks,” says Bill Galston, a former Clinton White House official and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. And the budget, of course, is mainly a political road map. No one expects Congress to approve it.
Stories You Might Like
There’s a lot happening in the world. Through it all, Marketplace is here for you.
You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible.
Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.
