Despite Major Plans, Obama Taking Softer Stands

[biopowertoday]

Source: nytimes.com




http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/us/politics/19lobby.html?_r=1&hp


April 19, 2009

Despite Major Plans, Obama Taking Softer Stands
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and JACKIE CALMES

WASHINGTON — President Obama is well known for bold proposals that have raised expectations, but his administration has shown a tendency for compromise and caution, and even a willingness to capitulate on some early initiatives.

It was inevitable that Mr. Obama’s lofty pledge to change the ways of Washington would crash into the realities of governing, including lawmakers anxious to protect their constituents and an army of special-interest lobbyists.

Mr. Obama has not conceded on any major priority. His advisers argue that the concessions to date — on budget items, for instance — are intended to help win the bigger policy fights ahead. But his early willingness to deal or fold has left commentators, and some loyal Democrats, wondering: where’s the fight?

“The thing we still don’t know about him is what he is willing to fight for,” said Leonard Burman, an economist at the Urban Institute and a Treasury Department official in the Clinton administration. “The thing I worry about is that he likes giving good speeches, he likes the adulation and he likes to make people happy.”

So far, he said, “It’s hard to think of a place where he’s taken a really hard position.”..............

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/us/politics/19lobby.html?_r=1&hp