President Barack Obama introduced reforms for the executive branch of the federal government Friday, the second strong presidential stance he has taken since his recess appointment of Richard Courdray to the head position of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, all during a re-election year for the Obama administration.
The president’s press conference Friday was an interesting analysis for a plan that calls for a “leaner government,” with the White House having greater power. The plan comes 10 months prior to the 2012 presidential election following a year that featured three near government shutdowns and a historically low single digit approval rating for Congress.
After a 2011 that ended with the two chambers of Congress in bipartisan splits over payroll taxes, national debt control measures and debt increases for the U.S. After all of that, the president started 2012 with a new defense spending bill on the first day of the year, the appointment of Mr. Courdray, a reduction to the size of the military, a request to increase the debt limit by $1.2 trillion and finally the request for a “leaner government” Friday.
During all of this, the Republican primary election is occurring, with a bitter in party feud between candidates Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney over their respective track records and how that would qualify them to debate Mr. Obama about the very kinds of actions that he has taken to begin 2012.
Ironically Texas Governor Rick Perry’s campaign rhetoric centered around a call for a “part time Congress” comes to mind when the president mentions a call for a “leaner government” on Friday.
However, the president wasn’t seeking to send lawmakers home, rather he pitched a plan to consolidate federal agencies within the executive branch into one agency focused on increasing U.S. exports and becoming a single point of contact for “helping American businesses succeed.”
“I ran for office pledging to make our government leaner, and smarter, and more consumer friendly,” said the president Friday. “From the moment I got here I saw up close what many of you know to be true. The government that we have, is not the government that we need. We live in a 21st century economy but we’ve still got a government that’s organized for the 20th century.”
The president also announced that as of Friday, the Small Business Administration is upgraded to a cabinet level agency.
The president used the late former President Ronald Reagan’s administration as the contrast to his “leaner government” plan introduced Friday. Mr. Obama stated that during the Reagan administration marked the first time since the 1930s that U.S. presidents did not have the kind of authority he wants to reinstate to “streamline and reform the executive branch.”
The references to President Reagan, are a stark contrast to the way Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich describes his U.S. economic reforms as those of a “bold Reagan conservative.”
The looming 2012 re-election process seems to have Mr. Obama focused on becoming a two term president as evidenced by his administration’s swift action to begin the first two weeks of the year in terms of running the country while running for re-election against a tough Republican field.
Recent polls of hypothetical match ups between Mr. Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney are very close.
The week featured a busy schedule split with campaigning and presidential duties.
On Wednesday the president attended a fundraiser for his re-election campaign in Chicago. He raised reportedly more than $60 million in the 4th quarter of 2011 alone for his campaign.
During the White House press conference Friday, he sought to make it clear that he is implementing a message of “Change” that he introduced in 2008. He contrasted his plan and the 1984 Reagan model, a comparison that seemed to be aimed at the Republican presidential candidates who commonly use President Reagan as the model for a successful Republican presidency.
“1984, we didn’t have the internet, just to take one example. A generation of Americans has come of age,” said the president. “These changes would help small business owners. They would also help medium and large businesses, and as a consequence they would create more jobs.”
According to the White House, the president’s plan would reduce the federal workforce by 1,000-2,000 jobs through “attrition.”
