Chicago - Twenty-four days into his presidency, Barack Obama recorded last night a legislative achievement of the sort that few of his predecessors achieved at any point in their tenure.

    In size and scope, there is almost nothing in history to rival the economic stimulus legislation that Obama shepherded through Congress in just over three weeks. And the result - produced largely without Republican participation - was remarkably similar to the terms Obama's team outlined even before he was inaugurated: a package of tax cuts and spending totaling about $775 billion.

    As Obama urged passage of the plan, he and his still-incomplete team demonstrated a single-mindedness that was familiar from the campaign trail. That intensity may have contributed to missteps in other areas, as the president's White House stumbled repeatedly in the vetting of his Cabinet and staff nominees. And high-minded promises of bipartisanship evaporated as Republicans accused the president and his Democratic allies in Congress of the same heavy-handed tactics that Obama, in his campaign, had often demanded be changed.

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Obama to Sign Stimulus Bill Tuesday in Denver    ●

    But even before the plan passed the Senate last night, the president's top advisers were crowing. "We've been in office, what, 2 1/2 , three weeks? We've passed the most major sweeping comprehensive legislation as relates to economic activity ever in a three-week period of time," White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said Thursday evening in the West Wing.

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) credited Obama's leadership on the legislation yesterday, saying, "The American people know, and historians are judging, that this is one remarkable president."

    Certain that he had succeeded in his goal, Obama left Washington before the Senate vote was completed, returning home to Chicago last night for the first time since becoming president.

    The feat compares only with President Franklin D. Roosevelt's banking system overhaul in 1933, which cleared Congress within days of his inauguration.

    For Obama, though, the costs of that rapid pace may be his relationship with Republicans, who derided the bill as the wrong prescription for a national economy that has appeared for months to be on the verge of collapse.

    House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (Ohio) described the stimulus package as a "billion-dollar-a-page" spending plan and accused Democrats of not wanting people to read it "because they might actually find out what's in it. And in the days and weeks and months to come, we'll know how this money will be spent."

    Obama aides had predicted several weeks ago that Republican lawmakers from states such as Michigan, Florida and California, where many communities are struggling, would feel compelled to vote for the bill's final passage because of the impact it promised for their constituents. Instead, opposition to the plan only increased over that time.

    "This was not an easy vote for me. I had to dig down deep," said Rep. Candice S. Miller (R-Mich.). Her conclusion: "Michigan, we are getting railroaded."

    Long before the end of the 100 days that, since FDR's feat, have been used to measure the opening act of a presidency, Obama and his allies who control Congress can point to a major legislative victory earlier than most new administrations.

    At about this point in Bill Clinton's administration, the president and his new team were putting the final touches on an economic plan that had yet to be publicly announced.

    That economic plan ultimately passed in August, giving the young president a victory. But his $19 billion stimulus plan - one-fortieth of the current legislation - was too controversial to survive the partisan battles.

    By the end of three weeks, Clinton had named an envoy to Bosnia and announced rules to limit corporate tax deductions for executive pay. And he had announced a plan to save $35 billion in Medicare costs by cutting payments to hospitals and raising premiums for the wealthier elderly. He railed at the cost of prescription drugs. But none of those issues was resolved within that time.

    President George W. Bush was similarly without a major achievement by the week of Feb. 8, 2001, three weeks after his inauguration.

    Bush had begun selling his $1.6 trillion plan to cut taxes, and he had announced a plan for a big investment in new weaponry for the military. He was preparing for his first international trip, to Mexico, and gave a speech to military units warning against "overdeployment."

    Unlike Obama, by this point Bush had not yet held a prime-time news conference. Like Obama, Bush made an early gesture to encourage bipartisanship: inviting members of the Kennedy family to the White House to see the movie "Thirteen Days."

    Bush's efforts at bipartisanship largely failed, but not until after he had launched a war in Iraq and pursued controversial efforts to expand the power of the executive branch.

    Obama may yet find that his early legislative success amounts to little in a country where the public has a famously short attention span. And other issues will soon intrude on a White House that has largely tried to postpone foreign policy concerns and other domestic issues.

    Obama moved quickly to announce the closure of the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but he said it would take a year to study how to make it happen. On issues ranging from Pakistan and Afghanistan to the war in Iraq, he has ordered commissions or study groups to make recommendations.

    And thus far, he has taken a pass on other hot-button domestic issues: He has not succumbed to pressure to take quick action on stem cell research or new unionizing rules, for example.

    Obama aides dismiss such points, saying that the deepening economic crisis required the president to focus all of his attention on the stimulus package first.

    Emanuel, who served as a senior adviser in Clinton's administration, said, "Having been in two separate White Houses, within our third week, given our set of accomplishments - well, measure them up."

Obama to Sign Stimulus Bill Tuesday in Denver

Saturday 14 February 2009

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by: Matt Spetalnick, Reuters

    Chicago - U.S. President Barack Obama on Saturday hailed congressional approval of a $787 billion economic stimulus bill as a "major milestone on our road to recovery" and the White House said he would sign the legislation on Tuesday in Denver.

    "I will sign this legislation into law shortly, and we'll begin making the immediate investments necessary to put people back to work," Obama said, savoring his biggest legislative victory since taking office on Jan. 20.

    The Senate cast the final vote, 60-38, late on Friday, hours after the House of Representatives passed an identical bill, 246-183, capping weeks of arguing over how to best jolt the economy out of deep recession.

    Obama and his fellow Democrats who control Congress failed to win over many Republicans, falling short of the broad bipartisan support he sought for the massive package of increased spending and tax cuts.

    But Obama brushed off partisan bickering over the stimulus bill as "healthy differences of opinion."

    "Congress has passed my economic recovery plan - an ambitious plan at a time we badly need it," he said in his weekly radio address delivered during his first trip home to Chicago since assuming the presidency. "This is a major milestone on our road to recovery."

    Obama, who had warned that economic crisis could turn to catastrophe without rapid government intervention, said the stimulus would "lay a new foundation" for lasting growth.

    The White House has said it will take about a month for the money to start flowing. But a primary concern for economists is that the stimulus will come too late to do much good in 2009, when many forecasters think full-year output will contract.

    Much-Needed Boost

    Despite that, final passage of the stimulus bill gives a much-needed boost to the new president, whose "No-drama Obama" image has come under strain of late.

    He has had an uneven start, dealing with an uproar over the tax problems of several top Cabinet choices and the abrupt withdrawal last week of his nominee for commerce secretary, Republican Sen. Judd Gregg, citing policy differences.

    But Obama has kept his approval ratings high by tackling the economy as his top domestic priority. His recipe includes middle-class tax cuts, infrastructure spending, help for the poor and unemployed and investment in alternative energy.

    He predicts that the stimulus plan will save or create more than 3.5 million jobs over the next two years.

    But the stimulus debate in Congress has also laid bare bitter divisions over how to boost an economy suffering a rising jobless rate of 7.6 percent and a banking crisis that has nearly frozen lending.

    Only three Republicans voted for the measure in the 100-seat Senate, and no Republicans broke ranks to support it the House, arguing it had too much spending and not enough tax breaks. The final plan was split into 36 percent for tax cuts and 64 percent in spending and other provisions.

    Sen. Lisa Murkowski, delivering the Republicans' radio address, said Democrats should be mindful that funding spent on stimulus "isn't Monopoly money" and it adds to the federal deficit. "Much of the spending is wasteful," she said.

    But Obama, pointing out that he had inherited a $1 trillion federal deficit after eight years of Republican rule, defended the increase in deficit spending from the stimulus as necessary in the short-term "in order to jump-start our sick economy."

    He pledged to submit a proposed federal budget in coming weeks that will "begin to restore the discipline these challenging times demand."

    He insisted in addition to the stimulus plan, there was a critical need to "stabilize, repair, and reform our banking system" and stem the spread of housing foreclosures.

    "We must write and enforce new rules of the road, to stop unscrupulous speculators from undermining our economy ever again," Obama said. But he offered no specifics.

    Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner faced heavy criticism last week when he announced the administration's plan to rescue the banking industry but gave few details.

    -------

    (Editing by Philip Barbara)