“It wasn’t supposed to be like this for the White House and a re-elected president with political capital to spend,” Roll Call writes. “But President Barack Obama is in a position of supplication to Hill Republicans, talking loudly and often about the harm of automatic budget cuts but lacking the leverage to get the GOP to buckle.”
The Hill: “The first months of President Obama’s second term are being built around a simple premise: No caving. From the sequester to immigration reform to the broader debate about the role of government in American life, Obama is in an ultra-assertive mood, practically daring Republicans to defy his wishes.”
“President Barack Obama has tapped Wal-Mart’s Sylvia Mathews Burwell as his next budget chief, thrusting her into the center of Washington’s heated partisan budget battles and is filling vacancies at the Energy Department and Environmental Protection Agency, an official says,” the AP writes. “A White House official said Obama will announce Burwell’s nomination to lead the Office of Management and Budget during a White House ceremony Monday morning, a White House official said. If confirmed by the Senate, Burwell would bring more diversity to Obama’s second term Cabinet following criticism that many top jobs were going to white men.”
And: “A White House official says President Barack Obama on Monday will appoint a new energy secretary and new head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Obama is nominating MIT scientist Ernest Moniz to head the Energy Department and EPA veteran Gina McCarthy to run the environmental agency. She currently serves as EPA’s assistant administrator for air and radiation.”
More strategy of hope…? White House economic adviser Gene Sperling’s betting House Republicans will relent on revenue once the effects of the sequester begin to be felt: "They'll choose this bipartisan compromise over what is an ideological position that every single penny of deficit reduction going forward must be on the middle class or seniors or children, and that there can't be one penny that comes from closing loopholes or tax expenditures,” he said.
“When Vice President Joe Biden addresses the main pro-Israel lobby on Monday, he'll be expected to deliver some tough talk on Iran, following repeated attacks against the administration's trustworthiness,” The Hill writes.
The Boston Globe: “Now that the cuts known as sequestration have been triggered, an unlikely meeting of the minds is taking place among some liberals, libertarians, and Tea Party conservatives: They say the US defense budget, which is larger than that of the next nine largest militaries combined, can and should be cut significantly — and that doing so will not harm national security.”
Ruth Bader Ginsburg says she’s staying on the Supreme Court at least through next year.
