[Posted by Karl]

Pres. Obama is proposing and Congress is disposing of his “too much, too soon” agenda:

Congressional and administration aides agree that none of his three biggest agenda items is likely to achieve final passage before this fall.

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“There’s no question: It’s a lot,” said one administration official. “But he’s made the point that you’ve got to at least try to do this — and do as much as you can, now — because it’s all interrelated and all helps the economy.”

Obama has made that point, because his pollsters tell him to play on public ignorance.  However, there is little evidence that he has convinced a Democratic Congress that it is true.

Instead, Congress is undoubtedly looking at Obama’s unsustainable deficit spending proposals as a measure of how incremental any change is likely to be. 

Congress is also likely noticing that the recession is worsening, with potentially dire implications for our financial system, and that even the Obama team’s rosier assessments project almost eight percent unemployment in 2010.  They are noticing that Obama is currently a more polarizing figure than Pres. Bush was at this point in his presidency.  Accordingly, they are noticing that Obama’s left-wing economics are driving independent voters away from the Democrats in poll after poll.  It is not an environment in which Democratic members of Congress will want to stand for reelection in 2010.

In sum, it is not just the numbers in Obama’s budget that do not add up; the political calculations are almost as shaky.

–Karl