President Barack Obama left on a nine-day trip Friday just as the deficit-cutting supercommittee stumbles into its critical final phase and lawmakers race to avert a government shutdown.
And neither Congress nor the White House really seems to care about his absence.
It’s the latest sign that the two ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, once locked in a co-dependent relationship, are officially in the breakup phase.
Obama has embraced his single status over the past two months by mocking Congress for blocking most of his jobs agenda and issuing executive orders to work around it. Now, he’s resisting any temptation to engage in presidential hand-holding on the deficit fight and he’s heading out of town.
This is the new Obama, determined to keep his distance from Congress rather than get dragged into its drama, as he often did during his first two-and-a-half years in office.
Twice before, the president cancelled the very same trip, once to round up votes on the health care bill and once to deal with BP oil spill fallout. This time, his message to Congress is: You’re on your own.
The government will run out of money Nov. 18, a day before Obama returns, setting up a potential government shutdown. But Congress is working on a bill keep the government open, possibly requiring the president to sign it by autopen, a mechanical signature, for only the second time in history. (Obama first used it in May to renew the Patriot Act while traveling through Europe.)
The supercommittee must report its plan for shaving at least $1.2 trillion from the deficit by Nov. 23, only four days after Obama returns. But automatic cuts will kick in even if the panel fails, so the political risk could pale in comparison to the summer debt-limit fight, when the country screeched to the brink of default.
The split screen of the president’s trip through Hawaii, Indonesia and Australia and the high-stakes wrangling in Washington could prove politically tricky for Obama, particularly if Congress suffers a total breakdown or gets close to one — not exactly a stretch, given its recent track record. The president called the supercommittee chairs from Air Force One on Friday and urged them to act.
But the White House has made a calculated decision that the latest set of challenges aren’t the president’s to solve and that he will do more good far away from Washington, pressing a jobs message on the global stage by trying to open the lucrative Asian markets to American-made products.
“We have no plans to change the president’s schedule,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said in an interview. “It is a congressional committee with a mandate given by Congress and made up entirely of members of Congress. They should do their job. It is not that complicated.”
Republicans, meanwhile, are gearing up to blame Obama if the supercommittee can’t meet the deadline. GOP leaders have publicly accused the president of disengaging from the legislative process — a tactical decision that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and others have pointed to as evidence that Obama wants the supercommittee to fail.
But that appears to be more about political point-scoring. Privately, the Hill’s response to Obama has been: Please go. We don’t need you around anyway.
“We are disappointed in the president’s lack of leadership, but I’m not sure one more instance of a lack of leadership will push anyone over the edge,” a senior Senate Republican aide said. “We’re not really shocked by these things anymore. It’s hard to be disappointed when it’s about the 50th time something like this happens.”
Even congressional Democrats, who are usually the first to call on Obama to take more ownership of an issue, aren’t clamoring for the president to step in this time around.
“The other things really required more personal attention,” said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), who sought greater presidential involvement during the health care fight and on deficit debate earlier this year. “This is further along in terms of getting a resolution.”
Still, the difference between the Obama of 2010 and Obama of 2011 is noteworthy. Obama’s decision to stick to his plan – travel abroad to boost job creation at home – follows a string of go-it-alone actions, from his campaign-style road show on the American Jobs Act to a series of modest executive orders aimed at helping struggling homeowners, veterans and former students with debt.
Obama scuttled a trip to Australia and Indonesia in March 2010 to round up votes for the health care bill, a schedule change demanded by congressional Democrats to advance his signature piece of legislation. Public outcry over the BP spill made it impossible to be half a world away while oil gushed into the Gulf of Mexico.
The West Wing doesn’t consider the current spending debates nearly as urgent.
The success of the supercommittee rests on one question, administration officials say: Will Republicans agree to higher taxes on upper-income families? The 12-member panel has been struggling for weeks — and Congress at large for months — to break an impasse on that issue. Keeping Obama, who released his deficit-reduction plan in September, around the White House for the next nine days probably won’t alter that dynamic, officials said.
“No president can change the fundamental orientation of the other party,” a senior administration official said Thursday.
On Friday, Obama warned the panel’s co-chairs, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), that he wouldn’t accept any effort to void the automatic cuts if the committee fails, according to a White House readout of the calls.
“Congress must not shirk its responsibilities,” the White House said in a statement. “The American people deserve to have their leaders come together and make the tough choices necessary to live within our means, just as American families do every day in these tough economic times. The president urged the leaders to get this done.”
The White House statement is one indication that Obama’s aides are mindful of making sure the president looks like he’s engaged and focused on Americans’ No. 1 worry — the economy. They are positioning Obama’s trip as a jobs mission.
He will use the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum this weekend in Hawaii as a platform to promote a new trade agreement known as the Trans Pacific Partnership — “the next phase of the U.S. trade agenda,” said Ben Rhodes, the White House deputy national security adviser.
The president is expected to announce the framework of an agreement among the nine-country trade partnership that includes Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam.
Obama’s trip through Australia and Indonesia will focus on the same theme of improving economic ties with Asia.
“When the American people see the president traveling in the Asia Pacific, they will see him advocating for U.S. jobs and U.S. businesses,” Rhodes said during a briefing this week with reporters.
“When you ask why are we so focused on this region,” Rhodes continued, “an overwhelming reason why is because of the economic potential, and the direct tie-in to people at home.”
Obama won’t struggle to keep up with developments back home, aides said. He did, after all, help execute the start of the mission in Libya as he traveled through Latin America in March.
“When the president is on these trips he’s always able to deal with any matters anywhere in the world,” Rhodes said. “So whether it was the beginning of the Libya operation on our Latin America trip, or whether it was being able to engage with his administration and other leaders back in the United States, he’s more than capable of doing that during his four days here in Asian countries.”
But Obama will still need to walk a fine line, said Richard Bush, director of the Center for Northeast Asia Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution.
“Being in Hawaii and Australia and Bali — I know he’s not on vacation, but it kind of looks like it,” Bush said.