Grassley: Obama budget step toward 'socialism'

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By David R. Sands

Mr. Obama's reservation came on a "rider" to the stimulus bill that had been routinely included on spending bills for more than a decade.

"I do not interpret this provision to detract from my authority to direct the heads of executive departments to supervise, control and correct employees' communications with the Congress in cases where such communications would be unlawful or would reveal information that is properly privileged or otherwise confidential," Mr. Obama wrote.

Said Mr. Grassley, "There's an institutional disease within the executive branch of government under any president that says, 'We're going to drag our feet on anything Congress wants to know.'"

He vowed to continue his constitutional oversight role of the executive branch, saying he preferred to wage the fight "battle by battle rather than war by war."

"But this business of what he said in the signing statement, it's almost war," he said.

The senator said he had not received a response from Mr. Obama to a letter he wrote complaining about the whistleblower signing statement.

"We've heard nothing," he said. "I don't know if he's backtracking or whether he's just legitimately so busy with the economy that he doesn't have time to consider what I have to say."

Mr. Grassley also revealed he is rallying support in the Senate for a three-year budget spending freeze to rein in the federal deficit and show taxpayers Washington was capable of living within its means in times of economic sacrifice.

"It would be a way of showing the conservatism of our fiscal policy," he said.

Mr. Grassley also faulted Mr. Obama for overloading the legislative circuits too early in his term, pushing for health care, energy and education reform even as he confronts a deep recession and a banking crisis.

Mr. Grassley contended that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his famous first "100 Days" in 1933 concentrated less on legislative achievements than on restoring confidence in the country's economic future.