As Inauguration Commences, Obama Ignores Jobs Council, Late Drafting Budget Proposal

January 21st, 2013 1:16 AM

Here are two things the major liberal media outlets aren't telling you.

While guns have dominated the national political dialogue, the clock is ticking on Obama’s budget, and he’s already admitted he will yet again be late, missing the Feb. 4 deadline mandated by federal law.  What's more, for a president who originally campaigned on continuing to create jobs and economic growth for the American middle class, Mr. Obama has not met with his job council in one year, last meeting with the brain trust on January 17, 2012. 

Concerning the budget, Roll Call’s Paul Krawzak wrote on January 8 that:

The Obama administration’s fiscal 2014 budget is widely expected to arrive late on Capitol Hill, possibly not until sometime in March, primarily as a result of uncertainty created by fiscal cliff negotiations.

The White House and Office of Management and Budget have not said when the budget will be released. By law, the spending proposal is due the first Monday in February, which will be Feb. 4. Fiscal 2014 will begin Oct. 1.

“I think everyone that I’ve talked to, everyone’s expecting March,” said Patrick Lester, federal fiscal policy director at the Center for Effective Government, formerly called OMB Watch.


That’s in between the fight over the debt ceiling and the coming military sequestration cuts.  Additionally, Josh Gerstein of Politico wrote in a January 18 post that:

President Barack Obama's Jobs Council hit a notable milestone on Thursday: one year without an official meeting. The 26-member panel is also set to expire at the end of the month, unless Obama extends its tenure.

The group, formally known as the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, last convened on Jan. 17, 2012 for a White House session where it presented formal recommendations to Obama. It was the panel's fourth official meeting since it was created in early 2011.

The White House did not have a comment on this development.  For an administration to abandon a cornerstone of its re-election campaign, this is hardly a minor issue.  

The liberal media made sure to amplify, albeit briefly, complaints from Obama's left about a lack of diversity in his second-term Cabinet nominations. 

Yet when it comes to the fundamental economic policy responsibilities of his office, the media are strangely silent, preferring to lay as much blame on Washington's broken fiscal policy on congressional Republicans. 

In doing so, the liberal media are serving as a PR adjunct for the Obama White House rather than objective purveyors of news.