Congress stretched thin by Obama

WASHINGTON — President Obama's ambitious first-year agenda flies in the face of wisdom attributed to the late Rep. Morris Udall: Congress can do only one thing at a time.

Obama's deluge of wide-ranging proposals is straining the legislative machinery on Capitol Hill and in the White House. The pace is driven by concerns about the deteriorating world economy and pressure on Congress to tackle health care, economic and energy initiatives while Obama's popularity is high and his momentum strong.

Administration officials such as Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner are run ragged getting to congressional hearings and speeches to explain Obama's policies.

Democrats are not enamored with many details of the Obama agenda. At a closed-door briefing of the House Democratic Caucus last week, budget director Peter Orszag was asked to justify the Obama proposals to curb mortgage-interest deductions for upper-income people and to reduce farm subsidies, two sacred cows.

Some Democrats worry Obama unnecessarily risks losing ground by pushing for so much at once; it's hard to assemble the coalitions needed to pass major legislation.

"I told them to do one major thing at a time," said Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., citing Udall's line. "We'll be making enemies all over the place, even within our own party."

The votes on big spending plans that have dominated Congress for two months are causing difficulty in maintaining party discipline, especially among conservative Democrats.

Obama has made his first retreat in the face of the heavy load he has asked Congress to carry: He abandoned his campaign to end congressional funding for parochial projects, known as earmarks, and last week signed a bill laden with them.

In part, Democrats said, the president did this to avoid alienating lawmakers he will need for his bigger, upcoming initiatives.

Obama is asking for comprehensive action on a broad range of issues that divide the parties and have stalled in Congress in the past: health care, energy, economic recovery, tax increases.

The administration is urging action on all fronts on the argument that the issues are related. For example, addressing rising health costs and seeking energy independence are crucial to restoring the country's economic strength, they argue.

"It would certainly be convenient to only have to deal with one thing," said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. "Regrettably, there are enough challenges that face the American people and our future economic growth that it demands focusing on all of them at the same time."

Obama's potential problem isn't so much the length of his wish list as the difficulty of it, especially for Democrats in vulnerable seats.

"At some point they're going to say, 'Enough is enough,' " said William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former adviser to President Clinton. "Asking them to vote on a lot of popular measures is one thing. (But) if you have three helpings of spinach on your plate, you may be less inclined to dig in," he said. "And the president has given Congress a plateful of spinach."