Morning Must Reads — Spending habit proves too hard to kick

Wall Street Journal — American Jobbery Act

When the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal editorial pages are simpatico, you know something is up.

The issue today is spending and both papers are in accord that despite a lot of palaver about fiscal responsibility, Congress is still deep in its irresponsible spending habit.

As Examiner colleague Susan Ferrechio points out, President Obama’s request on Monday for a sort of Mother-may-I line-item veto for future budgets looked irrationally optimistic given that his Democratic teammates pretty obviously have no intention of even passing a budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

Like a family that can’t bear to face its debt, the government will just go on paying the bills that come with red letters on the envelopes and ignoring the rest.

But the administration is looking to beef up its credibility on fiscal restraint ahead of what will be another spending spree for a jobs package.

The Post’s take:

“But the bill comes larded with millions of dollars worth of tax subsidies whose main economic impact is not to create jobs but to shift them from one place to another: an extension of Recovery Zone bonds; more breaks for biodiesel; and, our favorite, extended rapid depreciation for ‘motor sports entertainment complexes.’ On the spending side, the big-ticket items include yet another postponement of a scheduled reduction in doctor payments under Medicare, at a cost of $65 billion through 2014 — the ‘doc fix.’ Then there’s a six-month extension of federal Medicaid relief for state governments ($24 billion over 10 years), an extension of unemployment benefits ($47 billion) and an extension of health-insurance subsidies for the unemployed ($8 billion). These measures reflect understandable concern about the lingering impact of the recession. But tucked into the $1.5 billion agriculture disaster relief section of the bill are $21 million for a Hawaiian sugar cane cooperative and $75 million for America’s hard-pressed chicken producers. These are national priorities?”

The measure is expected to be completed before the Memorial Day recess and will be done on a parallel track with a special appropriation for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As the Journal points out, it’s going to be a blockbuster week.

“All of this is ‘paid for,’ in the Beltway lingo, with a net tax increase on business of about $40 billion and at least $134 billion of new debt. There’s a new 24 cent a barrel tax on oil companies, which would flow to consumers in higher gas prices, because Congress says the industry’s profits are excessive.

U.S. multinational companies would pay a higher tax rate on their overseas income, which will not help them create more jobs here. The better way to discourage job outsourcing is to cut the corporate income tax rate, but Mr. Levin and his union allies will have none of that.”

New York Times — Oil Hits Home, Spreading Arc of Frustration

On the day that the White House had planned to put BP in the stocks for failing to cap the gusher at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen undermined the talking points by asking the all important question: Who else?

Allen’s frank question reminded everyone that as much as the administration would like to talk about the president’s “anger,” “frustration” or whatever other focus-grouped feeling for BP, the government doesn’t have the tools to try to plug the well. It was a rather adult way to talk. I assume Allen will pay a terrible price for it in the press and in the administration.

Writers Campbell Robertson, Clifford Krauss and John Broder check in on what else happened while Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and a legation of congressmen and Senators stood by the shore looking like a flock of pelicans that didn’t know which way to fly.

“The recriminations over the performance of BP and the Obama administration could subside if the latest effort to kill the well, now scheduled for Wednesday morning, succeeds.

In a maneuver called a “top kill,” BP is planning to pump heavy drilling fluids twice the density of water through two narrow lines into the blowout preventer to essentially plug the runaway well.

‘The top kill operation is not a guarantee of success,’ warned Doug Suttles, BP’s chief operating officer, who added that it had never been tried before in deep water under high pressures.

‘If the government felt there were other things to do it is clearly within the power of the government to do that,’ Mr. Suttles said. ‘Everyone is very, very frustrated.’ Mr. Suttles said that if the top kill did work, the leak could be stopped as early as Wednesday night. Then engineers could either fill the well with cement or replace the failed blowout preventer.”

Washington Post — Obama backs ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ compromise that could pave way for repeal

Things are changing in the military.

For the first time in 70 years, the annual ritual where graduating seniors at The U.S. Naval Academy climb the Herndon obelisk to replace a midshipman’s cap with an officers cap at the top was done with one important difference: the monument was not greased with lard.

The time for this year’s climb was 2 minutes, 15 seconds, down from the multi-hour ordeal that past graduates faced.

The new commandant said the change was made “to improve the safety of the event.”

The biggest change for the military ahead, though, is to allow gay members to be open about their sexuality within the ranks.

The measure, though, is unpopular in Congress. The White House had hoped to punt until next year until after a full assessment had been made by the Pentagon (and elections had passed). But liberal lawmakers and gay activists feared that a less-Democratic Congress next year would be even less likely to approve the change, and forced the president’s hand.

The White House has gotten behind a compromise that would add an amendment to a supplemental war appropriation opening the ranks to openly gay members, allowing Congress to approve the plan this year but forestall its implementation year until Obama give it the green light pending a review by the brass next year.

Since we haven’t heard from the secretary of defense on the matter, the White House approach may be a reflection of internal tension on the issue.

It seems unlikely that Congress would hold up war funding to prevent out gays from serving. Adding in the gay stuff makes it less likely that liberals would block the plan because of concerns about the ballooning U.S. commitment to the failed narcostate of Afghanistan.

The lesson, via writers Michael Shear and Ed O’Keefe: Don’t underestimate the power of the gay lobby on the Left.

“The effort to reverse the ban accelerated with Obama’s one-sentence endorsement of a repeal in his January State of the Union address, sources close to the negotiations said. The next morning, advocates began a multimillion-dollar effort to convince six moderate members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

On Sunday, White House officials invited gay rights leaders to the White House for a Monday-morning meeting with Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina and administration lawyers, according to sources familiar with the meeting.”

Wall Street Journal — U.S. Vows Military Support for Seoul

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Geithner are striking out in China as they look to get Beijing to stop manipulating its currency to juice exports and limit imports and to squeeze their allies in North Korea for having sunk a South Korean vessel. An inconvenient act of war.

That means the U.S. has to go ahead with Plan B, which is to ratchet up the rhetoric and do some joint military training exercises with the SoKos in an effort to show the North that we mean business.

Writers Jay Solomon and Evan Ramstad tell us about one reason the government in the South is hoping that this all goes away: cheap labor.

“Officials in Seoul said they will preserve the single largest economic project between the two countries, an industrial park where, as of last week, about 120 South Korean firms employed 43,804 North Koreans. But officials urged the South Korean companies that operate in the industrial park to cut down the number of South Korean workers there. And on Monday, many did: only 295 South Koreans worked at the complex, down from 1,013 on Sunday.”

New York Times — For Sestak Matter, a ‘Trust Us’ Response From White House

As Examiner colleague Byron York points out today, things aren’t so happy between the White House and press corps these days.

Though the administration generally doesn’t answer questions about anything much, the presidents’ men are being particularly tight-lipped about the allegation from Pennsylvania Democratic Senate candidate Joe Sestak that he was offered a bribe in the form of a federal job in exchange for not mounting his ultimately successful primary campaign against Arlen Specter.

The stock answer so far has been that the White House has cleared itself in an internal investigation.

Sestak is trapped between his decision to stick to his guns about the bribe but not offer more details and the White House’s decision to stonewall. He even told CNN’s John King that he didn’t want to distract attention from “the economy.” Yikes.

As Examiner colleague Julie Mason points out, the internal investigation line works on small-fry scandal, but as many past administrations have found, when something big is going down, the line tends to just hack off the press corps.

Writer Peter Baker looks at the White House talking point that all presidents use federal jobs to shape political outcome, but seems to omit that federal laws dictate that any promises be oblique.

You can say you’d be really, really grateful and would look forward to working with someone who did you a political favor, but a quid pro quo of a job in favor or running or not running for office is a felony.

Baker focuses instead on an image problem for the president as this scandal plays itself out. This is a very old Washington way to operate.

“Indeed, Douglas B. Sosnik, the White House political director under President Bill Clinton, said using jobs to reward political friends was simply ‘business as usual.’ But, he added, that was the problem: Mr. Obama promised not to perpetuate business as usual. ‘It cuts against the Obama brand,’ he said. ‘The public tolerance for these deals is less than in the past.’”

Hartford Courant — Sources say Rob Simmons will drop out of U.S. Senate race tomorrow

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal’s exaggerations about his military service have scrambled the race there badly.

In a sign that he is still taking on political water, Blumenthal issued a non-apology apology for his Vietnam fakery on Monday, in which he said he was not “clear or precise” in describing his service and regrets “offending anyone.” That’s to say he still won’t admit that he misled people about his service in the Marines and that he regrets the confusion caused by slips of his tongue.

Blumenthal’s flat affect and halting climb down on his Vietnam fibs in the face of lots of evidence suggest that he will not soon be shed of this debacle.

But former Rep. Rob Simmons is dropping out of the race after threatening to drag the GOP through an August primary despite getting snubbed by the state party’s nominating convention in favor of, as the New York Times calls her, “professional wrestling impresario” Linda McMahon.

Democrats believe that Simmons, with high name identification, a Vietnam combat record and a long record as a moderate Republican would have made more trouble in liberal Connecticut against former reservist Blumenthal. They relish the idea of showing old WWF videos to mock McMahon and delving into past wrestling scandals related to steroids, domestic abuse, etc.

But McMahon is running better in the polls against Blumenthal so far and promises to bring a financial smackdown to the Democrat.

Writer Daniela Altimari:

“McMahon, a political outsider who has never held elective office, has enormous resources. She said she would spend up to $50 million of her vast fortune on the campaign.”

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