The KGB Oracle Forums General Public Discussion (SPECIAL ACCESS) KGB Political Debate Central The Obama Memos

When it came time for Obama to write his fiscal 2011 budget, which was his next big opportunity to help the economy, he began to chip away at some dramatic campaign commitments. For instance, in 2008 he had promised a bold space program. “As President,” he had said, “I will establish a robust and balanced civilian space program” that “not only will inspire the world with both human and robotic space exploration but also will again lead in confronting the challenges we face here on Earth, including global climate change, energy independence, and aeronautics research.” In November, 2009, his advisers, in a memo, delivered some bad news: “The 10-year deficit has deteriorated by roughly $6 trillion.” The next sentence was in boldface type and underlined: “Especially in light of our new fiscal context, it is not possible to achieve the inspiring space program goals discussed during the campaign.”

As he worked on his budget, Obama scoured his briefing materials for ways to cut spending. Next to a discussion of continuing “spending levels associated with the Recovery Act,” he wrote, “Not possible.” He even questioned funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is generally considered politically untouchable. It was going to receive a 7.2-per-cent increase, the largest two-year percentage increase in the department’s budget in more than thirty years. Obama was informed that it would “underscore the Administration’s commitment to our veterans. Specifically, it will do so by continuing to improve care for our wounded warriors, expand programs to reduce and prevent the incidence of homelessness among veterans.” Obama wrote, “Given what we did last year, does the increase need to be this high?”

One Cabinet official made it clear that she did not share the President’s growing commitment to coupon-clipping: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She rejected the White House’s budget for her department, and wrote the President a six-page letter detailing her complaints. Some in the White House saw the long letter as a weapon, something that could be leaked if Clinton didn’t get her way. “At the proposed funding levels,” Clinton wrote, “we will not have the capacity to deliver either the full level of civilian staffing or the foreign assistance programs that underlie the civilian-military strategy you outlined for Afghanistan; nor the transition from U.S. Military to civilian programming in Iraq; nor the expanded assistance that is central to our Pakistan strategy.” She went on, “I want to emphasize that I fully understand the economic realities within which this budget is being constructed, and I share your commitment to fiscal responsibility. But I am deeply concerned about these funding levels.”

Many of Obama’s liberal allies have been disillusioned, too. When Steve Jobs last met the President, in February, 2011, he was most annoyed by Obama’s pessimism—he seemed to dismiss every idea Jobs proffered. “The president is very smart,” Jobs told his biographer, Walter Isaacson. “But he kept explaining to us reasons why things can’t get done. It infuriates me.”

Obama made important mistakes in the first half of his term. He underestimated the severity of the recession and therefore the scale of the response it required, and he clung too long to his vision of post-partisanship, even in the face of a radicalized opposition whose stated goal was his defeat. When, in 2009, he was presented with the windfall pot of thirty-five billion dollars that he could spend on one of his campaign priorities or use for deficit reduction, Obama wrote, “I would opt for deficit reduction, but it doesn’t sound like we would get any credit for it.” At other moments, the memos show a President intensely focused on trying to restrain the government Leviathan he inherited, despite an opposition that doesn’t trust his intentions.