The response to President Obama’s proposed 2012 budget from Republicans was predictably negative. But the reaction from what Mr. Obama’s spokesman once called “the professional left” was remarkably muted.
White House officials and their political operatives had braced for criticism from liberals who they expected might dislike the focus on deficit reduction and the cuts in some key programs aimed primarily at Democratic constituencies.
There was a bit of grumbling Monday as Mr. Obama revealed his plans, including a proposal to slash the home heating assistance program and community block grants by 50 percent. But the griping was relatively minor, especially given that liberals were already upset by Mr. Obama’s compromise on the Bush tax cuts less than two months ago.
In fact, the president is getting much-needed support from his liberal leaders on Capitol Hill. Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House budget committee, called Mr. Obama’s proposal a “tough love budget” and aimed his criticism at Republicans and their push to cut even further.
There were very few rants on Twitter by left-leaning bloggers or liberal talk show hosts. And the statements issued by the usual suspects were tame compared with the heated rhetoric that the same groups have aimed at Mr. Obama in the past two years.
“While we take issue with some specific cuts proposed in President Obama’s budget, the president charts a far better course than does the House Republican budget,” said David Goldston, a spokesman for the National Resources Defense Council, an environmental organization.
The Progressive Change Campaign criticized the cuts to the heating assistance program and reductions in Pell Grants for college students, saying they were more worthy than the tax breaks that were extended last year. But the two-paragraph statement was hardly a repudiation of Mr. Obama or his budget.
“Proposing even more tax breaks for Wall Street banks while slashing and burning necessary government programs is right-wing radicalism, and no Democratic president should be part of it,” the group said in the statement, referring to Mr. Obama’s tax compromise last year and the budget cuts he introduced on Monday.
And Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, a liberal Democrat, and Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont, both quibbled with the budget in interviews on MSNBC. Mr. Frank said Mr. Obama should have proposed rolling back America’s role as “policeman to the world.” And Mr. Dean questioned whether some of the cuts in the budget were aimed mostly at low-income citizens.
But Mr. Obama’s top political aides concluded Monday afternoon that the budget had not sparked a large political firestorm among their base, though one senior official acknowledged that they were still monitoring reaction among liberals as the details of the 300-page budget emerge.
The senior White House adviser David Plouffe and other top White House officials held a conference call with liberal bloggers Monday evening to brief them on the budget’s details and reassure them of the president’s commitment to their causes.
One liberal supporter who listened to the call described it as “mostly boring,” an indication that the president’s base was not particularly upset about the budget. During the call, Mr. Plouffe also offered some comfort to the bloggers by suggesting that Mr. Obama was not interested in big reductions in Social Security.
“If there are proposals out there that are acceptable, that don’t reduce benefits, don’t slash benefits, that don’t affect current retirees, the president is open to proposals that would shore the system up in the long term,” Mr. Plouffe told the bloggers.
The bloggers also questioned Mr. Plouffe about what sacrifices the budget is asking of people earning more than $250,000 a year. Others asked about the cuts in funding for the heating assistance program. One attendee described the bloggers as “skeptical but polite.”
Why would the left be so accepting of the president’s budget?
One reason could be that those on the left are taking a cue from the complaints coming from conservatives, who assailed Mr. Obama’s budget as falling far short of the cutting that is needed to deal with the nation’s deficits. Liberals might think: if conservatives hate it, maybe it’s not so bad.
By contrast, when the president reached his tax compromise in December, Republicans were largely praising the deal, which made Mr. Obama’s liberal supporters even more suspicious.
Mr. Obama is also in a different place than he was in November, after taking what he called a “shellacking” in the midterm elections. Since then, he has delivered on a repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding service by gay men and lesbians — a big win for liberals. And his numbers have rebounded since he called for new investment in his State of the Union address. But some liberals may have also accepted the reality that a Republican-controlled House will require more compromise from Mr. Obama.
And finally, Mr. Obama’s message is now being managed by a new, disciplined team at the White House. The president and his team have been focused on a single message since the State of the Union, even repeating his new catch phrase — “winning the future” — repeatedly at every event. That discipline appears to be filtering down to his liberal supporters on television, radio and the Internet.
The next immediate fight in Washington is going to be between the president and the Republicans, as Congress debates funding for the current year’s budget in the hopes of avoiding a government shutdown early next month.
In the meantime, Mr. Obama appears to have avoided a battle on his left flank. At least for now.
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