Big Ideas=Bags Of Cash
Rahm Emanuel's 'affirmative' government.
On another day in another time, the White House chief of staff might have been on Air Force One, flying to the metropolis of Los Angeles, where his brother is a famous Hollywood agent and the president was doing "Jay Leno." But Rahm Emanuel stayed in Washington last week, hunkered down behind closed doors in the U.S. Capitol, plotting ways to push his boss's colossal, ambitious $3.6 trillion budget through a Congress that increasingly looks like it might blanch at the price tag. Even as he met with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other House Democrats—longtime allies from his days as a Chicago congressman—officials elsewhere on the Hill were issuing grim new predictions about federal deficits five years hence. To which Emanuel, I am told by a source in the leadership, had a characteristically scatological response, involving an anatomically impossible sex act. Rahm denied the remark, but not the sentiment. "Now is not the time to pull back," he said to me. "Those long-term predictions are meaningless—and usually wrong."
While the Beltway is getting its populist freak on over AIG, a bigger, more fateful drama is underway in the Speaker's office. It's about nothing less than whether the Obama administration can reverse a generation's worth of skepticism about the role of government in our lives. The federal budget is the Rosetta stone of American public philosophy, and Obama and Emanuel want to re-chisel it in expensive new ways: quality health care for all; better, more innovative public education; a rewritten IRS code that taxes the wealthy more heavily to channel benefits to lower-income Americans; and a new global effort to slow climate change.
As you watch the drama unfold, think of the Obama budget as Iraq in reverse. Neocons in the Bush administration used the attack of 9/11 to push us into Mesopotamia; progressives see economic crisis as an opportunity as well. "We believe in the affirmative role of government," Emanuel says. "Not 'active' for its own sake, but affirmative in the sense of being a force for good in everyday lives—education, health, a lessening of economic and social schisms in society."
The problem is that affirmation is expensive. The budget projects a deficit next year of at least $1.7 trillion—piled atop the trillions already spent or loaned to try to dig us out of a global recession. "It is totally unsustainable," says Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad, a Stanford M.B.A. who chairs the Budget Committee. Even if Obama is correct in claiming that he can cut the deficit in half in the next few years, the burdens on future generations will continue to grow. Motivated by such concerns, 15 Senate Democrats last week formed a "moderate" bloc. A creature of the House, Emanuel —and Obama—will have to win them over. "As long as they're not just posturing, I can work with them," he told me.
But he's not taking any chances. While his battle plan isn't final, it probably will involve tinkering with the Senate's rules to allow health-care, tax and education bills to pass with only 51 votes—not the filibuster-proof 60 that has become the norm in the Senate. But even getting 51 votes won't be easy. There is already talk of dropping Obama's environmental plan from the 51-vote bill—a concession to moderates such as Evan Bayh of Indiana. Emanuel denied there was such a deal. But the dealmaking has just begun, and the theatrics will be worthy of Hollywood by the time the credits roll.
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Howard Fineman is Newsweek's Senior Washington Correspondent and Columnist, senior editor and deputy Washington bureau chief. He is the author of "Living Politics," a column that began on MSNBC.COM and Newsweek.com and that now also appears in the print magazine. An award-winning reporter and writer, Fineman also is an analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, appearing regularly on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," "Hardball with Chris Matthews" and "TODAY." The author of scores of Newsweek cover stories, Fineman's work has appeared as well in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The New Republic. His 2008 national best-selling book, "The Thirteen American Arguments," was released in paperback by Random House in the spring of 2009.
One of the nation's leading political reporters, Fineman has interviewed every major presidential candidate from (then-vice president) George H.W. Bush in 1985 to (then senator) Barack Obama early and often in the 2008 campaign cycle. His current work focuses on the Obama Administration and its top officials, as well as on Congress and politics throughout the country. Although based in Washington, Fineman travels widely in the U.S. and has covered politics and other events in 49 of the 50 states.
Fineman's work has produced many milestones and awards. A cover story in November 2001 featured President George W. Bush's first extensive interview after 9/11. Another cover, "Bush and God," was part of a series of articles that won the 2003 National Magazine Award for General Excellence. His reporting has helped Newsweek win many honors from the Magazine Publishers Association and the American Journalism Review. Other awards include a "Page One" from the Headliners Club of New York, a "Silver Gavel" from the American Bar Association and a "Deadline Club" from the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). In 2006 he received the Alumni Award from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
As a reporter and writer, Fineman ranges widely. Besides campaign-year covers, other projects have included: race and politics, the impact of digital technology on society, the influence of Hollywood on politics, the rise of the religious right and of conservative talk radio. He has interviewed business leaders such as George Soros, Bill Gates, Steve Case and Robert Rubin and entertainment figures such as Warren Beatty, Jane Fonda and Jay Leno.
Although now under exclusive television contract to NBC, Fineman over the years has appeared on major public affairs shows, such as Nightline, Face the Nation, Fox News Sunday, Larry King Live, Charlie Rose and the NewsHour. He was a regular panelist on Washington Week in Review on PBS (1983-95) and on CNN's Capital Gang Sunday (1995-98). He worked with Ted Koppel on Nightline specials, and has been a guest on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report."
A native of Pittsburgh, Fineman began his career at The Courier-Journal in Louisville, covering the environment, the coal industry and state politics before joining the newspaper's Washington bureau in 1978. He moved to Newsweek in 1980, was named chief political correspondent in 1984, deputy Washington bureau chief in 1993, senior editor in 1995 and senior Washington correspondent and columnist in 2008.
Fineman holds an A.B., Phi Beta Kappa, from Colgate, an M.S. in journalism from Columbia and a J.D. from the Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville. His legal education included a year as a visiting student at the Georgetown University Law Center. He received Watson and Pultizer Traveling Fellowships for study in Europe, Russia and the Middle East, and has traveled to more than 40 countries, among them China, Vietnam, Japan, Ukraine, Israel, Turkey and the West Bank Palestinian Territories.
Fineman is married to Amy L. Nathan, a senior counsel at the Federal Communications Commission. They live in Washington with their two children, Meredith and Nicholas.
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