WASHINGTON — His presidency tied to the fate of the economy, Barack Obama is revamping his economic-policy team and signaling cooperation to ascendant Republicans and the business community at a pivotal moment in the nation’s recovery and Washington politics.
The president is surrounding himself with veterans of the Clinton administration.
Chief of staff William Daley, economic overseer Gene Sperling and recently confirmed budget director Jacob Lew form an inner circle with a history of bipartisanship and experience in the art of the deal.
“Our mission has to be to accelerate hiring and accelerate growth,” Obama said Friday at a window-manufacturing plant in suburban Maryland.
It is a mission facing political and economic crosscurrents, underscored Friday by a mixed bag of an unemployment report and a relatively upbeat but cautionary assessment of the economy from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.
Continued high unemployment and slow growth into 2012 would certainly haunt Obama’s re-election campaign. But the ability to shape an economic policy is complicated by a divided Congress where Republicans are demanding deficit reductions while many Democrats seek more spending to spur the economy.
Obama has moved to have it both ways, and to appeal to Republicans and business leaders who find value in international trade deals. To that end, he is wielding an economic message centered on competitiveness that spends on education initiatives to retool the workforce, embraces trade and provides tax breaks to businesses.
At the same time, with a new chief of staff and a new director of the National Economic Council in place at the White House, Obama also is turning his focus toward tackling the deficit and debt.
“Everybody knows that the long-run fiscal situation facing the country is one that we’ve got to address, and the president’s not afraid of that,” said White House economist Austan Goolsbee. “You will see when the president releases his budget in the coming weeks that he’s got a tough-minded approach.”
With Daley, Sperling and Lew, Obama enters the second two years of his presidency counseled by Clinton-era officials who have worked across party lines to cut economic deals. They recall a happier time, when unemployment was low, budgets were balanced and the economy was humming.
As director of the White House National Economic Council, Sperling will have a hand in shaping the course of nearly all of the administration’s economic policies, including looming battles with Republican lawmakers on spending cuts and raising the debt ceiling.
“He’s a public servant who has devoted his life to making this economy work — and making it work, specifically, for middle-class families,” Obama said.
On Friday, Obama also nominated Katharine Abraham to his Council of Economic Advisers and Heather Higginbottom as deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget. Those two posts require Senate confirmation.
Obama also elevated economic adviser Jason Furman to assistant to the president for economic policy.
Jobs, jobs, jobs
