David Lawder Reuters One month after taking office, President Barack Obama summoned the nation's top lawmakers and budget experts to the White House for a summit to figure out how to tame huge federal deficits. Standing at a podium in the elegant East Room, the Democratic president wasted no time in reminding his audience, which included Republican congressional leaders, that he had just inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit in the midst of “an economic crisis unlike any we have seen in generations.” He gave a finger-waving talk on fiscal responsibility and boldly pledged to halve the deficit in four years. There was no hint in his remarks of the behind-the-scenes debate that had taken place among his advisers over whether such an ambitious promise could be kept. And as the economic recovery failed to take off, he stuck with it for the next two years. On Monday, three years after first making that pledge, Obama conceded that he would not be able to keep it. The pledge casts light on how Obama's administration, in its attempt to articulate a bold vision for a nation in crisis, made a politically risky bet based on rosy assumptions that were later wrecked by an economy that did not play ball. “If there was a mistake here, it was in making a pledge that was going to be a function of variables you couldn't foresee,” said Jared Bernstein, Vice President Joe Biden's former chief economist. Republicans, aiming to make Obama a one-term president in November, have jumped on the broken pledge with glee, trying to turn up the heat on the leader even as a stronger economy threatens to undermine their argument for voting him out. While his opponents seek to make political hay over the issue, analysts say voters are likely to judge Obama on his broader handling of the economy when they vote in November. Obama played down the broken promise this week, blaming economic events beyond his control. The recession was much deeper than anyone had realized when he made the pledge on Feb. 23, 2009, he told an Atlanta broadcoaster on Tuesday. “A lot of us didn't understand at that point how bad it was going to get,” he said. That is true, budget experts agree. But they say the promise was still overly ambitious and left little room for surprises that could, and did, knock the economic recovery off course. While it became frighteningly clear that the recession had been extraordinarily severe and the recovery lackluster, Obama reiterated his promise, even as late as February of last year. “They made a dumb commitment,” said David Walker, a former U.S. comptroller general who took part in Obama's 2009 summit. Obama's plan was based on the idea that the economy would post a quick recovery, much like it had after other recent recessions. It was supported by White House economic forecasts that were more optimistic than those of many private economists. Many experts expected the financial crisis to do more lasting damage to the economy. Only months earlier, the nation's banking system had nearly seized up as panic gripped Wall Street following the bursting of a housing bubble. “They had to know in so many ways with regard to housing and credit and jobs that they were in a problematic situation for economic recovery,” said Ethan Siegal, a fiscal policy expert who advises investors on Washington politics. Still, Siegal said it was expected that a president would strike an optimistic tone during a crisis, helping him to project leadership. “Part of politics is rolling the dice.” __
