FOXWIRE: Senate Moderates Voice Budget Concerns; Controversial Reconciliation Still Possible

Moderate Senate Democrats met for the second time to talk about budget concerns, this time for about 45 minutes behind closed doors on Tuesday with Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag, a meeting hosted by Sen. Evan Bayh, D-IN.

Sen Ben Nelson, D-NE, one of twelve members who attended the meeting, said of the group, "I think there's a common concern about getting spending under control and making sure that there's a budget that doesn't have unsustainable requirements in it far into the future." Nelson has called the group the "Mod Squad."

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The Congressional Auditorium is Capitol Hill’s version of Area of 51. Buried deep in the bowels of the newly-minted, subterranean Capitol Visitor’s Center (CVC), the auditorium seemingly isn’t listed on any maps. Cell phone and BlackBerry reception is spotty. The ceiling above the auditorium’s alcove acoustically corrupts normal conversations into a bizarre, underwater-like drone.

It wouldn’t surprise me if compasses spin wildly here like navigational equipment is known to do in the Bermuda Triangle.

This is the classic “undisclosed location” in Washington.

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Wayne Gretzky had Marty McSorley. Washington Capitals phenom Alex Ovechkin has Donald Brashear. And President Obama has White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

In hockey, McSorley and Brashear are known as enforcers. Hulking bruisers who drop their gloves to fight or crunch an opponent with a bone-rattling check if someone molests the superstar. And even if the enforcer doesn’t touch you, just the threat of punishment meted out by the enforcer is often enough to give the Gretzskys and Ovechkins a little more open ice to operate on.

President Obama paid a rare visit to the Capitol Wednesday to press Senate Democrats to preserve his budget priorities on health care, environmental policy and the deficit. Meantime across Capitol Hill, the House Budget Committee met in a day-long session to prep a spending blueprint authored by chairman John Spratt (D-SC) Spratt’s plan trimmed $150 billion in spending from Mr. Obama’s budget and made deeper dents in the deficit over the next five years.

And that’s why President Obama’s enforcer skated through the House Democrats crease around 7:15 pm.

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President Obama is back again -- -another trip up Pennsylvania Ave to the Capitol.  He is lunching with his former Senate Democratic colleagues in the Mansfield Room, but before that, Fox has learned that he will meet privately with the North Dakota delegation to talk about that state's serious flood problems along the Red River in Fargo. 

Obama faces some uphill challenges from members of his own party, particularly on cap and trade. And new deficit projections out of CBO arent helping him on health care either.  Despite all the spinning that Dems & the White House are nearly identical on budgets --- they're quite far apart.

WATCH AD HERE:  watch?v=ar4FTclpVkg

Liberal interest group, Americans United for Change, is launching a TV ad blitz today in 12 states to push moderate Democrats and Republicans to support President Obama's budget.

The new spot, "Blueprint," doesn't name the names of specific legislators but asks citizens in target markets to call Congress and "tell them you support President Obama's budget. Let's all get to work rebuilding America."

The ad buy, which will total more than $700K, is going up in the home states of a number of key moderate Democratic Senators including Evan Bayh (IN), Ben Nelson (NE), Mary Landrieu (LA) and Mark Warner (VA) as well as Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (ND)-who has been somewhat critical of the budget of late. The spot will also air in Maine, the home to two moderate Republican Senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins.

"For eight years, the Bush Administration turned our economy into a house of cards," an announcer says. "Now President Obama has drawn up a budget blue print that will rebuild our economy on a solid foundation. Jobs, health care, education, clean energy - reform. On this foundation we can build real, long term economic prosperity - for all Americans."

The spot will also appear on national cable in AR, AK, PA, NC, AZ and NH.

"The work that begins this week on President Obama's budget is by far the most significant in shaping the President's transformational commitments to healthcare reform, education and clean energy - investments that will rebuild and renew America's economy and lay a solid foundation for long-term prosperity," said Tom McMahon, Acting Executive Director of Americans United for Change. "This ad is designed to engage the American people in the process of bringing about the transformational change they voted for in November by contacting their elected representatives and asking for their help in putting our country on the road to prosperity. It is our hope that Congress gets the boost it needs to stand up to the special interests that will do anything to maintain the failed policies of the last eight years that were entirely stacked in their favor and that turned our economy into a house of cards."

The spot is the latest ad by AUC, which most rescently launched ads arguing that Republicans in Congress were following the lead of talk show host Rush Limbaugh in saying " no" to every Democratic proposal.

- "Time. Keeps flowing like a river. To the sea. To the sea. ‘Til it’s gone forever. Gone forever. Gone forevermore."
– Time, The Alan Parsons Project

Time is the most valuable commodity on Capitol Hill. But time grows more precious when curbs are placed on the time lawmakers have to probe Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke about what they knew about $165 million in bonuses government-owned AIG paid forked over to executives.

Congressional committee chairs are legendary for imposing tight time restrictions on witnesses and lawmakers inflicted with logorrhea at hearings. But no one watches the clock quite like Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA).

At a December hearing featuring the CEO’s of the Big 3 automakers, Frank restricted committee members to tight, five-minute windows to ask their questions and receive answers. Frank even admonished the executives when they tarried leaving the hearing as the chairman tried to rush another panel to the witness table.

Frank was tough at the December hearing. But he hermetically sealed the lawmakers question and answer time at Tuesday’s hearing with Geithner, Bernanke and New York Federal Reserve President William Dudley. The Financial Services panel is a burgeoning one with 71 members. And amid the public furor over AIG’s bonuses, most of the members on the panel wedged into the hearing room to score a few moments with Geithner and Bernanke. So Frank implored his colleagues to adhere to five-minute sessions.

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They haven't agreed on much of late but it appears that Democratic and Republican House leaders are united in skepticism about the latest White House plan for increased authority to seize financial institutions.

"This is an unprecedented grab of power and before that occurs, there ought to be a real debate about whether we should give that authority to the Treasury Secretary," Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) told reporters Tuesday morning.

About an hour later, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) also expressed wariness about another expansion in treasury authority.

"We are talking about huge sums of money, huge consequences for one individual...at this point in time I want to look it more carefully," Hoyer said.  "Obviously one of the issues that Congress is concerned about is the delegation of authority."

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner asked Congress Tuesday to give the White House unprecedented powers to seize large insurers, investment firms and hedge funds, leaping beyond its present authority to seize only banks.

Hoyer added that he plans to speak to Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and other committee heads about whether the initial proposal requires greater congressional oversight.