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They held their tongues overnight, but Republican Congressional leaders on Friday ripped the initial Democratic offer in new budget negotiations, with Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky calling the bid of another $6.5 billion in cuts “unserious.”

Jonathan Ernst/Getty Images Senator Mitch McConnell, left, and House Speaker John A. Boehner both voiced their dissatisfaction on Friday with the Democrats’ budget offer.

“The Democrats’ whole approach is to see what they can get away with, rather than to actually do something about the debt and jobs crisis Americans want us to address,” Mr. McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, said on the chamber floor.

House Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio was equally tough on the proposal Democrats put forward in a negotiating session on Thursday.

“Yesterday, the White House and Congressional Democrats finally announced their position,” Mr. Boehner said in a statement released Friday morning. “Unfortunately, it is little more than the status quo, and the status quo is indefensible and unacceptable.”

In Thursday’s meeting with top Congressional leaders and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., lawmakers and administration officials struck some kind of gentleman’s agreement that they would not say anything about the talks, leaving Mr. Biden the honor of issuing a brief and bland statement.

“We had a good meeting, and the conversation will continue,” he said. But that clock on niceties seemed to have run out in less than 24 hours.

The Democratic proposal would cut another $6.5 billion from current spending on top of $4 billion already agreed to by Congress and President Obama, giving Democrats about $10.5 billion in spending reductions compared to $61 billion already approved by the House.

In an effort to push the House and Senate toward one another, Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, plans to allow votes next week on both the House bill and a Democratic alternative in an effort to gauge the level support – or lack thereof – for either plan. Congress has until March 18 to reach a deal.

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He may not be the high-profile, high-volume, hard-charging White House chief of staff that Rahm Emanuel was, but suddenly, William M. Daley is everywhere.

He was at the negotiation table Thursday evening, as administration officials and top party lawmakers convened in a face-to-face meeting in their efforts to agree on a budget and avoid a government shutdown.

Two days before, he spoke via videoconference to business executives at a Chamber of Commerce meeting in Florida. And it was Mr. Daley last weekend who wrote an opinion article in the Financial Times to counter the claim — made earlier by the chief executive of 3M — that President Obama is anti-business.

Looking forward, political junkies all over the country will have a chance to see him on Sunday morning, when he appears on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

In only a few weeks on the job as President Obama’s top aide, Mr. Daley, a former banking executive and commerce secretary, has emerged as a valued behind-the-scenes legislative negotiator and ambassador to big business while helping to impose a new sense of discipline at the White House.

With legislative relationships — especially in the House — dating back two decades, Mr. Daley has become a key part of the administration’s legislative liaison strategy, reaching out personally to Republican lawmakers by phone and in person, according to people on Capitol Hill who have been on the receiving end of the effort.

His presence in that strategy was clear on Thursday as photographs showed him side-by-side with Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Jack Lew, the budget director, as the trio headed to the opening round of budget negotiations.

House Republicans, led by Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, are demanding deep cuts in federal spending as the two sides work to end a months-long impasse over the current year’s spending. Democrats have offered cuts as well, but object to the depth of the Republican effort, saying it would hurt needed programs and slashes spending too deeply while the economy is still recovering.

Mr. Biden offered the shortest of assessments of the meeting after it ended: “We had a good meeting, and the conversation will continue.”

CNN’s Dana Bash reported that at some point Mr. Biden asked staff members, including Mr. Daley, to leave the room to the elected officials. But those familiar with Mr. Daley and Mr. Boehner have said they expect conversations between these two to be at the heart of negotiations.

“From my interchanges with them, infrequent but over the span of two decades, I’ve found that they both have good political judgment on both people and issues, including a keen sense of when their own side is about to get clobbered,” Michael Barone, a fellow at the American Enterprise institute and the co-author of the Almanac of American Politics, wrote earlier this year. “It’s not hard for me to see these two guys negotiating agreements on major issues.”

Earlier this week, Mr. Daley’s video appearance at the chamber event was welcomed by business executives, many of whom have known Mr. Daley for years. The new chief of staff answered questions about economic and trade issues, according to an official who attended.

“We were pleased to hear from Bill Daley at our board meeting today and enjoyed discussing ways to address our mutual goals of creating jobs and bolstering the economy and US competitiveness,” said Tom Collamore, the senior vice president for communications at the group.

Mr. Daley has also helped to bring less drama to the White House, according to the Times’s Jackie Calmes. He has a bearing that fits the moment for Mr. Obama as he begins his re-election campaign: a no-nonsense, calm, I’m-the-adult-in-the-room manner.

In the Financial Times’s opinion article, Mr. Daley took George Buckley, the 3M executive, to task in a way that is reminiscent of a mildly scolding teacher.

“There is plenty of work to do. But the stakes are too high to give credence to the kind of comments Mr Buckley made this week, or to believe those who would question Mr Obama’s commitment to our economic recovery,” Mr. Daley wrote.

But look for Mr. Daley’s most public role to be as a new and frequent pitchman on the Sunday morning news programs. David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, has left the White House after filling that role on many Sundays. So has Robert Gibbs, the former press secretary. David Plouffe, who replaced Mr. Axelrod, is famously camera-shy.

In his first Sunday morning interview as chief of staff at the end of last month, Mr. Daley offered the administration’s view on the then-unfolding protests in Egypt and on the president’s relationship with Wall Street. Appearing on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on January 30, he also foreshadowed Thursday’s budget meeting on Capitol Hill.

“We want to sit down with the leadership of Congress as we work through the deficit, as we work through the other issues and talk about the possibilities,” he said.

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Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. will convene a meeting of Congressional leaders of both parties in the Capitol in Thursday afternoon in an effort to find a way out of a spending dispute that has the entire government operating under a stop-gap budget.

The White House announced that what could be the first of several sessions would be held at 4 p.m. Also taking part from the Obama administration will be the White House chief of staff, William M. Daley, and Jacob Lew, the budget director. President Obama called for the negotiations on Wednesday.

When they first heard of the planned talks, Republicans were unenthusiastic since Democrats had not yet made public their own plan for spending cuts and the House had approved $61 billion in reductions. But Republicans said they would take part. They continued to press on Thursday for a Democratic proposal.

“Republicans are happy to go,” Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said. “But putting a meeting on the schedule doesn’t change the fact that neither the White House nor a single Democrat in Congress has proposed a plan that would allow the government to remain open and that would respond to the voters by reining in spending. All we get is talk.”

The current interim spending bill passed by the Senate and signed by the president Wednesday expires March 18, giving Congress and the administration two weeks to strike a deal to fund the government through Sept. 30, pass another short-term measure or see parts of the government shut down.

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February 26

The On the Hill column looks at a budget battle without earmarks.

February 26

The latest political news from today’s Times, the president’s weekly address and weekend happenings in Washington.

February 25

President George W. Bush canceled a speaking engagement Friday because the group that invited him, the Young Presidents Organization, also asked Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, to take the conference stage.

February 25

Chris Christie sat down with The Caucus Wednesday morning for an interview and the Lightning Round.

February 25

Jeremy Bernard will be the first openly gay person to serve as the White House social secretary.

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Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey, said Wednesday that his counterpart in Indiana, Mitch Daniels, is the only prospective Republican presidential candidate who is honestly talking about how to confront the nation’s biggest fiscal challenges.

The New Jersey governor made the blunt assessment of the potential Republican field during a wide-ranging discussion with The Caucus a day after presenting his second budget to state lawmakers.

Looking to 2012

Republican Voices

Mr. Christie said that any Republican who fails to offer a specific plan to address the growth in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security is “selling people short” and will not be successful in challenging President Obama next year. He said Mr. Daniels might not be the candidate he endorses, but that, for now, “He’s the only one around the country, at least who is on the list as considering running for president, who is talking about it,” referring to addressing the skyrocketing costs of entitlement spending.

As he enters his second year in office, Mr. Christie has made blunt talk his trademark, often sparking anger among his adversaries who say he is a bully. In the interview, Mr. Christie acknowledged that his biggest weakness is his tendency to have “unscripted moments” that prove politically difficult.

But even as he chides his Democratic rivals — most particularly the teachers’ unions — for ideological rigidity, Mr. Christie himself has largely adhered to a conservative playbook that involves cutting taxes, cutting spending and slashing pension benefits for public employees.

And even though he has plenty of advice for national politicians, Mr. Christie insists he has no intention of using a presidential campaign as a platform for his message of fiscal responsibility.

“What I’m trying to do is inspire a conversation among those people who want to be president,” Mr. Christie said. “It doesn’t mean you can’t have opinions on what the national issues should be just because you’re not willing to run for president yourself. I think that’s a false choice.”

Pressed on why he is passing up a chance to shape a debate he says is crucial and pressing, Mr. Christie said, “you have to believe, as I’ve said before, in your heart and in your mind, that you are ready, and I don’t believe that I am.”

Mr. Christie may not end up as a candidate for president, but he is happy to challenge Mr. Obama’s performance in the office. In the interview, he said that the president has so far failed to lead on addressing the country’s long-term fiscal health.

“He disappointed me when he didn’t step up and deal with the thing that consumes 80-plus percent of the federal budget,” Mr. Christie said, referring to the absence of entitlement reform in Mr. Obama’s State of the Union address and proposed 2012 budget.

Mr. Christie said it is “unrealistic” to think that Congress will “gather the momentum and the consensus” needed to revamp the entitlement programs. “We elect one president at a time. I think he needs to lead on that issue because it is the defining financial issue of the time.”

He was quick to add, though, that there are areas in which he thinks that Mr. Obama has “been very courageous” in his leadership: on education reform, after the Arizona shootings, in pushing for new energy initiatives. “When he wants to lead, he can be a very persuasive leader,” Mr. Christie said.

As a showdown looms in Congress over the budget, Mr. Christie said it will be up to Mr. Obama to serve a “constructive role” in helping the country avoid a painful government shutdown.

“The president as the leader of the country and the leader of the government has to decide, should he get involved to try to bring the parties together?” Mr. Christie said. “I think the public would credit him if he did. I don’t know if he has any interest in doing that.”

The first-term governor has moved aggressively against public employee unions in his state, demanding increased contributions for health benefits and accusing union leaders of being obstinate.

“The problem here is that the unions want to have it both ways,” Mr. Christie said. “They want collective bargaining. But then, if they don’t get everything they want at the collective bargaining table, they use their money to go to the Legislature and get enhanced benefits. And then when we try to take some of those enhanced benefits back legislatively, they say you are violating the sanctity of the collective bargaining process. Well, listen, you can’t have it both ways.”

But he has carefully avoided embracing the approach of Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin, who has pushed for an end to most collective bargaining in his state. In the interview, Mr. Christie distanced himself from Mr. Walker’s actions.

“I don’t think that there are a lot of parallels between what’s going on there and what’s going on in New Jersey,” Mr. Christie said Wednesday during a conversation with Times editors and reporters before the interview, adding that he has no problem with collective bargaining as long as it is fair.

A heavyset man, Mr. Christie is often described as fat by his critics. But he is also an imposing figure whose physical appearance matches his commanding approach to governing. Asked whether his size is a political asset or a liability, Mr. Christie laughed.

“It depends on the day,” he said. “It depends on the day. “

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Is it really different this time?

That’s what Republican political strategists are asking as party leaders and presidential prospects keep raising the bar in their quest to curb government deficits. As thrilling as that process feels for Tea Party members and conservative intellectuals, its merit as an electoral formula remains unproven at best.

Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Budget Committee, set the tone when he warned of fiscal catastrophe in his response to President Obama’s State of the Union address. Govs. Mitch Daniels of Indiana and Chris Christie of New Jersey have grown progressively more blunt in calling for big changes to Medicare and Social Security.

Now Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin has seized the spotlight with his showdown with state workers — a made-for-cable spectacle at the dawning of a new presidential race that has galvanized Republican budget hawks and unions allied with Democrats.

“That’s how the race is going to evolve,” said Scott Reed, who managed Senator Robert Dole’s campaign for the White House in 1996. “It’s going to be the serious and the unserious.”

That increases pressure on Republican presidential contenders to match bracing specifics from the likes of Governor Christie, who last week unequivocally embraced an increase in the Social Security retirement age. But shadowing such discussions are the setbacks that befell President Ronald Reagan, former Speaker Newt Gingrich and President George W. Bush when they attempted similar bold moves.

It is one thing to acknowledge that the entitlement programs Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid drive the nation’s long-term deficit. It is another to win a national election while pledging to scale them back.

“It’s not the third rail,” cautioned Ken Khachigian, a speechwriter for Mr. Reagan, “until you touch it.”

Lessons of 1980

Every presidential campaign has its own distinct backdrop. Four years ago, the contest began after midterm elections that were dominated by the Iraq war.

In early 1999, the economy was booming and the federal government had just recorded its first budget surplus in three decades. George W. Bush, then governor of Texas, assumed the good times would continue in calling for “prosperity with a purpose.”

In early 2011, high unemployment and enormous budget deficits have Republicans warning of national decline, as they did during Jimmy Carter’s presidency.

“I would compare it somewhat to 1980,” Mr. Khachigian said. If the analogy holds, Republican candidates will use fiscal issues to compete for the mantle of bold conservative leadership that Mr. Reagan captured.

But another lesson of 1980 is that unexpected events can rapidly shift the agenda. Nine days before Mr. Reagan announced his candidacy in November 1979, Iranian revolutionaries seized American diplomats in Tehran — the start of the hostage crisis that became a major factor in that race.

Moreover, the primary calendar may shape the campaign’s dialogue in unexpected ways. “Social conservatives still drive the bus in Iowa,” Mr. Reed noted.

That may explain one little-noticed recent line from Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi that established a contrast with Mr. Daniels’s call for a “truce” on social issues in deference to fiscal and economic challenges.

“A lot of people think while Republican governors were attacking fiscal issues we were ignoring social issues — that’s not right,” Mr. Barbour told the Conservative Political Action Conference. Highlighting “my pro-life agenda,” he invoked an anti-abortion group’s declaration that Mississippi is “the safest state in America for an unborn child.”

Entitlement Debate

What is sometimes forgotten about Mr. Reagan as a candidate is that he only carried tough talk so far about cutting spending.

“This does not mean sacrificing essential services; nor do we need to destroy the system of benefits which flow to the poor, the elderly, the sick and the handicapped,” he said in announcing his 1980 campaign.

It was only after he won the presidency that Mr. Reagan’s administration proposed cuts in Social Security. The president quickly backed off, but the Republicans still suffered a backlash in the 1982 Congressional elections.

Voters also punished them when Mr. Gingrich, against the advice of campaign strategists, sought to curb Medicare spending in 1995. His struggles over the issue helped President Bill Clinton win re-election the following year — and persuaded Congressional Republicans in 2005 to bury President George W. Bush’s proposal for a partial privatization of Social Security.

With renewed zeal, House Republican leaders now pledge that the budget Mr. Ryan is working on will tackle entitlement spending. And that has campaign strategists worried once again.

“There’s a difference between saying public employee unions have to take cuts, and attacking programs like Social Security and Medicare,” said Tom Rath, an influential New Hampshire Republican. Mr. Rath’s preferred presidential candidate, former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, steered clear of the entitlement debate in his CPAC speech.

“Chris Christie was pretty brave,” Mr. Khachigian said. “But it’s pretty clear he’s not running for president.”

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