While a Republican Congress has decided to snub President Obama's final budget, he's decided to make the most of their extreme partisanship by making some bold policy statements with it, which will only serve to highlight their extremism.
Given Congress' sight-unseen dismissal, the president's go-for-broke strategy makes sense, said Peter Orszag, who was White House budget director during Obama's first term and director of the Congressional Budget Office before that.
"If the document is legislatively irrelevant," Orszag said, "you might as well use it to expand the policy dialogue and lay out sensible proposals even if they will not become law this year or next." This year's budget proposal "lays the groundwork for Democrats to refine and embrace a more ambitious legislative agenda over time." […]
Where Obama's lame-duck policy agenda differs, suggests presidential historian Michael Beschloss, is in the scope of its ambition. "Modern presidents have tended to focus on a particular project" in their last year, Beschloss said—"for instance, Eisenhower and Reagan trying to wind down the Cold War, or Johnson trying to find peace in Vietnam." But Obama is different. He's "looking for ways in his final year to pursue an agenda on many fronts" in hopes not only of "getting something done" but also "nudging his successor to do certain things."
One of the smartest proposals is continuing the 100 percent contribution from the federal government for Medicaid expansion under Obamacare—not for states that have already expanded, but as further enticement for the 19 states that have refused it. That 100 percent contribution is set to expire at the end of 2016, a deadline that was meant to encourage states to implement the expansion in its first year. This change would provide that full funding for the first three years of expansion, whenever a state decided to implement it.
Another proposal is a $10 per barrel tax on crude oil, with the revenues going to mass transit.
It's getting big props from environmentalists as a way to take immediate action on reducing emissions. It "underscores the inevitable transition away from oil," says Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune. It would also help ease the perennial shortfalls in transportation funding.
These are smart, straightforward proposals that Republicans won't lose any sleep over opposing, because that's what they do. However, opposing the measly $1 billion Obama is requesting for his proposal to find a cure for cancer is going to be a little harder to justify. As is opposition to a new, $4 billion K-12 computer science program, since Republicans are on record wanting more computer skills training for kids. These popular proposals might be hard for Republicans to justify opposing, but they'll do it anyway.
Because that's what they do.