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Obama To Address Congress, Doubts

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By BILLY HOUSE

bhouse@tampatrib.com

Published: February 24, 2009

WASHINGTON - He's at the start of his first term, riding high in public approval ratings, supported by Congress' Democratic leaders and fresh out of the gate with legislative victories.

But President Barack Obama also remains cursed with a worsening economy, a need to hold to a tight federal budget, and public anxiousness about two ongoing wars.

With House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid perched behind him, Obama will give his first presidential address to a joint session of Congress tonight.

A fear over lost jobs and an uncertain economic future should make this one of the most-watched presidential addresses, said GOP Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite of Brooksville.

"America is frightened, absolutely frightened," she said.

The speech is not technically a State of the Union address because it is Obama's first year in the White House, says Ross Baker, a Rutgers University political scientist.

"Still, it's sort of the season for a State of the Union," he said. "And given the gravity of the economy, in particular, I think people will be hanging on every word."

Even as Obama is expected in his nationally televised speech to underscore the severity of the nation's economic crisis, he will be setting the stage for his first proposed federal budget, to be outlined to Congress later in the week.

Obama's administration is not yet prepared to submit a fully detailed budget, which will come in the spring.

What he will mention today, and unveil Thursday, is a framework of his spending priorities and broad funding levels for programs, and the gap he anticipates between the government's projected spending and revenue.

One Washington think-tank, the Brookings Institution, has issued a report projecting the national deficit will average at least $1 trillion a year for the 10 years after 2009, even if the economy returns to full employment, and the longer-range picture is even bleaker.

So far, Obama has not needed much Republican support in a Democratic-controlled Congress to get his legislative priorities through, a veritable spending spree in the form of an expansion of health insurance for poor children and a $787 billion economic stimulus package.

With such huge and long-term budget-deficit projections, it could get much tougher for the president to muster the congressional votes needed to accomplish some of his prominent campaign promises, such as expanding health care coverage for the uninsured.

One important thing to watch tonight will be the reaction of Republicans to what Obama lays out in his speech, nonpartisan political analysts say.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has been tapped to give the official Republican response to Obama's speech. Jindal is among Republican governors who, unlike Florida's Charlie Crist, have implied they may turn down money offered their states in the massive stimulus package.

"I expect Obama will use the speech to continue to advance the objective of addressing the most serious economic and financial crisis since the Great Depression," said Thomas Mann, a Brookings congressional expert.

"He will likely present a very sober assessment of the problem and the extended time it will take to recover from it," Mann said. "And he will urge Republicans to work with him and the Democrats to do what must be done to avoid a global economic catastrophe."

Amid this bipartisan split in Washington, a public opinion poll shows Florida voters are unsure about Obama's just-passed economic bailout package, even though they like the way Obama is handling his job. The Quinnipiac (Conn.) University Polling Institute found 64 percent of the 1,001 Florida voters surveyed liked Obama but only 51 percent were either "confident" or "somewhat confident" the plan will make a real difference.

Heading into tonight's speech, Republican and Democratic members of Congress representing the Tampa Bay area have a raft of topics they hope will be addressed. Those include more details about Obama's plan to help troubled homeowners refinance, and the direction he intends to take in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"Obviously the president needs to outline something for middle-class taxpayers who play by the rules," Brown-Waite said.

That is, Brown-Waite said, taxpayers who are finding that their own jobs are in jeopardy yet are being called upon to pay the costs for helping those who should not have qualified for mortgages in the first place.

Florida's Republican Sen. Mel Martinez said he commends Obama for announcing his administration will take action in the housing crisis, and hopes the president will underscore the need to do so during his speech.

Martinez said he also looks forward to Obama talking about what steps his administration will take "to ensure stimulus funds are used quickly and spent appropriately to stimulate the economy and have the desired impact."

As for the war in Afghanistan, Martinez said he wants to hear, "What is his plan for success since he is escalating troops there?"

Republican Rep. Gus Bilirakis said through a spokesman that he, too, "is especially looking forward to hearing the president's thoughts on bipartisanship as it pertains to the formulation of the housing bill."

Two Democrats, Sen. Bill Nelson and Rep. Kathy Castor of Tampa, also want Obama to talk more about his mortgage-refinancing plan and how it can help homeowners in Florida.

A Nelson spokesman said the senator wants to hear how the stimulus plan dovetails with Obama's plan for rescuing and reforming the banking sector, and how to "return us to a balanced federal budget once we've returned to prosperity."

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