Two top conservative Republicans ventured into enemy territory today -- the Senate press gallery -- armed with a blow-up graphic showing the budgetary peril facing the nation if the economic stimulus passes. The tally: a 1.8 trillion dollar deficit for 2009.
Yet, in an indication of just how deep the conservative support of Obama's plan is, the pair concluded that they may have no choice but to go along.
But just this once. And they're not happy about it.
"This is a one-time event, hopefully, when you need to use the government's good faith and credit to try to help us get out of it. That's not something that I'm all that excited about as a conservative, but it's a fact," said Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) of the nearly trillion-dollar stimulus package.
What about the ballooning deficit? "We realize that in a recession we're going to accept the fact that we're going to have high deficits. We don't have to like that," said Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the highest-ranking member of the House Budget Committee and a fiscal hawk.
And in a conference call Wednesday, the Chamber of Commerce announced its tentative support for Obama's stimulus plan and pledged to work with the incoming president, noting that the economy faced its biggest challenge since the Great Depression.
"I appreciate the irony that we're here doing a fireside chat," offered Ryan, seated before a fireplace in the gallery. He added, in a slightly less eloquent phrasing of FDR's famous line, "One of the biggest problems in the economy today is fear and uncertainty."
It may be the 1930s all over again in Washington, but one difference between now and then is striking. While pushing the New Deal, FDR ran up against a wall of opposition to any deficit spending whatsoever. That opposition has crumbled. "We all knew we were going to have a trillion dollar deficit in 2009. We didn't know it would happen so fast," said Ryan.
Gregg and Ryan said that the current economic situation made their deviation from conservative orthodoxy necessary. "This is an extraordinary recession," said Ryan, arguing that the stimulus should fund programs that return more than a dollar in economic benefit for every dollar of deficit spending.
If the stimulus bill is structured right and generates economic activity, "then I believe a vote for this is the fiscally responsible thing," said Gregg.
While some Republicans settle in with the idea of deficits, Obama cited the red ink as a reason to keep the stimulus lower than some recommendations. "We expect that [the package] will be on the high end of our estimates but will not be as high as some economists have recommended because of the constraints and concerns about the deficit," he said.
That may be just enough to soothe GOP fears -- for now. While they may be willing to choke down some red ink at the moment, deficit hawking is sure to return. "All this talk that we need to be completely unconcerned about deficits needs to be tempered by the fact that this needs to be a short term and not a long-term reality," said Ryan.
Much may hinge on the definition of short term. Obama said Tuesday that trillion dollar deficits will be a reality for several years to come. That continues to rub against longstanding GOP notions of fiscal discipline. Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) reflected that tension in a statement to reporters shortly after Ryan and Gregg departed the press gallery. "We can't," Boehner insisted, "simply borrow and spend our way back to prosperity."