Stumping for Jobs Plan, Obama Pushes Health Bill

Stumping for Jobs Plan, Obama Pushes Health Bill
By PETER BAKER
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: February 2, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/us/politics/03obama.html?th&emc=th


NASHUA, N.H. — President Obama hit the road again Tuesday to promote the new job-creation program he described as his No. 1 priority, but he refused to abandon his embattled health care legislation, vowing to “punch it through” resistance in Congress.

In a feisty and at times biting performance, Mr. Obama said the rising national debt “keeps me awake at night,” but put much of the blame on his predecessor and on unrestrained health care spending that he wants to rein in.

The New Hampshire visit was the latest stop on Mr. Obama’s tour of the country that is intended to recalibrate his presidency after the special election in Massachusetts cost his party unfettered control of the Senate.

His town-hall-style meeting at a local high school here was the fifth time he had taken questions from an audience or over the Internet in 12 days, and he rejected the notion that the Massachusetts election doomed the health care overhaul.

“Suddenly everybody says, ‘Oh no, it’s over,’ ” Mr. Obama said in mocking tones. “Well, no, it’s not over. We just have to make sure that we move methodically and that the American people understand what’s in the bill.”

The strong emphasis on health care came a week after he did not mention it until deep into his State of the Union address, and he seemed intent on erasing any doubts about his commitment.

“We had to go into overtime,” Mr. Obama said. “But we are now in the red zone. That’s exactly right. We’re in the red zone. We’ve got to punch it through.”

As he worked to salvage his program, Mr. Obama also opened the door to disassembling the climate change legislation that passed the House last year and pushing forward with parts that could still pass the Senate. “We may be able to separate these things out,” he said, “and it’s conceivable that that’s where the Senate ends up.”

The president came here to promote a proposal to use $30 billion of repaid bailout loans to help community banks increase lending to small businesses, part of a broader effort to stimulate job creation with the unemployment rate stuck at 10 percent.

The Independent Community Bankers of America praised the plan, saying in a statement that “every dollar of capital that goes into a community bank can potentially be leveraged 8 to 10 times into loans to small businesses.” But the Credit Union National Association declared itself “outraged and baffled,” asserting that the government could do more without cost to taxpayers by allowing more business lending by credit unions.

Critics said the plan was misguided because community banks had sufficient capital but were not lending as much as larger banks because they had trouble finding worthy borrowers. And some Republicans criticized the plan because under current law repaid bailout money is supposed to pay down public debt.

“It’s not for a piggy bank because you’re concerned about lending to small businesses and you want to get a political event when you go out and make a speech in Nashua,” Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, told the White House budget director at a testy hearing in Washington. “That’s not what this money’s for. This money is to reduce the debt of our children.”

The administration wants Congress to change the law and argued that most if not all of the money would eventually be repaid, meaning it would add relatively little to the deficit over time. But administration officials ran into other criticism on Capitol Hill a day after Mr. Obama released a budget plan projecting trillions of dollars of additional debt through his presidency.

Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine, said that increasing Medicare, payroll and personal income taxes on those making over $250,000 would hurt small businesses. “There is no way they’re going to move forward to job creation,” she said. “Who would take the risk?”

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner replied that reversing Bush-era tax cuts for wealthy Americans would affect only a fraction of small businesses. “You could say 2 to 3 percent is a lot of small businesses,” he said, “but it’s only 2 to 3 percent.”

Peter Baker reported from Nashua and Sewell Chan from Washington.