Pat Dollard

Tweet

Wall Street Journal:

By JONATHAN WEISMAN

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama raised the prospect of changes to his economic team Monday, saying his over-worked staffers were “going to have a whole range of decisions about family that’ll factor into” their career decisions.

The White House said no changes were planned. “He was signaling nothing more than support for the tough decisions they have made together and the hard work that has gone into helping the economy get on a path to recovery,” White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

There has been speculation for months that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers could take the fall for potentially bad election results—and the economy souring the national political mood against Democrats.

Two years into his first term, President George W. Bush forced out his first Treasury secretary and National Economic Council director after midterm elections.

The president’s comments came during a town-hall-style meeting in Washington put on by business-news cable channel CNBC.

The event was heavy on economic-policy talk and the concerns of struggling Americans, and exemplified the difficult position Mr. Obama has found himself in 43 days before midterm elections that could set back his party in Congress.

Just weeks ago, Mr. Obama floated new economic-policy proposals including $50 billion in additional infrastructure spending, an expanded and permanent research and development tax credit for business and a generous tax incentive for new business investments. Those proposals are gaining little traction in Congress.

Meanwhile, lawmakers in Mr. Obama’s own party are urging him to conduct more events highlighting his concern for the economy. But when he does, the president gets questions that highlight his political struggles—including several at the town hall from those who supported the president in 2008.

House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R., Ohio) may have inadvertently given Messrs. Geithner and Summers a lift recently when he called for them to be fired, but such calls have also come from Democrats who said the two men are too close to Wall Street.

“I have not made any determinations about personnel,” Mr. Obama said Monday.

Mr. Obama’s budget director, Peter Orszag, has already left, as has his first head of the Council of Economic Advisers, Christina Romer.

Among the challengers at the town hall was a hedge-fund manager who said Wall Street executives “feel like we’ve been whacked with a stick” by the administration.

The president responded that most of his critics believe he has been too soft on Wall Street. His case in point: The White House has not been able to end the practice of taxing some hedge fund and private-equity earnings at the capital-gains rates rather than the higher income-tax rates.

“The notion that somehow me saying maybe you should be taxed more like your secretary when you’re pulling home a billion dollars…a year I don’t think is me being extremist or anti-business,” the president said.

Mr. Obama expressed sympathy for those struggling with the stuttering economy and challenged tea-party activists to suggest specific ways to trim a government they say has grown too large and intrusive.

“It’s not enough just to say, ‘Get control of spending.’ I think it’s important for you to say, you know, I’m willing to cut veterans’ benefits, or I’m willing to cut Medicare or Social Security benefits, or I’m willing to see taxes go up.”