Beltway Confidential

President Obama's spokesman today indicated his budget as the only way to avoid a debt-ceiling showdown this year, but the Senate unanimously voted against the budget today.

"The nation has never ever faced a deeper, more dangerous debt crisis than we face today," Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said after the vote, as he praised Rep.Paul Ryan, R-Wis., for proposing a budget to put the debt on a sustainable path. "The president's budget utterly failed in that regard."

Obama's budget failed, 99 votes to 0. The U.S. House of Representatives already voted against the president's budget, 414-0.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney described Obama's budget as a "balanced approach" to fiscal policy, and called for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to support the plan when the United States hits the debt ceiling later this year.

A new Marquette Law School Poll of Wisconsin out today tells pretty much the same story as the PPP poll did yesterday: Gov. Scott Walker is up on Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett by about 5 points (Marquette has the race at 50-44, PPP had it at 50-45).

Perhaps more interesting are the presidential numbers from both polls. The PPP poll showed President Obama with a narrow 47-46 lead while Marquette has them tied at 46. That is a 13- to 14-point swing from Obama's 56-42 2008 victory over McCain in the state.

Let's give Obama the benefit of the doubt and say things have only swung against him by just 13 points, meaninf he'd still squeak by in Wisconsin 50-49. What would the 2012 map look like? According to 270 to Win it would mean a 321 to 217 Electoral College victory for Romney.

When President Obama attacked Americans for Prosperity during the 2010 campaigns, he suggested they might be a front for "a foreign-controlled corporation ... a big oil company, or a big bank."

So it's entertaining that AFP is now telling Obama to kill an agency that subsidizes foreign-controlled corporations buying stuff from large corporations including big oil companies by giving a taxpayer guarantee to big banks.

By calling on Obama to veto the Export-Import Bank, AFP is lining up against all the corporate bogey monsters Obama and many on the Left invoke in order to brand free-market groups like AFP as "front groups."

Foreign corporations are the actual recipients of Ex-Im's discounted loans and taxpayer-backed loan guarantees. Big oil loves Ex-Im -- the American Petroleum Institute signed a letter calling for Ex-Im's reauthorization. And, again, Ex-Im's biggest block of subsidies are loan guarantees, which is one reason Citi, for instance, signed that same letter.

Obama, barring a bizarre reversal, will not veto the bill, so the ad should be seen as AFP's attempt to highlight Obama's hypocrisy (he called Ex-Im "corporate welfare" in 2008), and to try to change the narrative on big corporations in politics.

Outside groups (527s, 501c4s, Super PACs, etc) are expected to far outspend the two actual presidential campaigns this election year. Here are the top seven videos by outside groups on YouTube now:

1. American Energy Alliance's "Nine Dollar Gas" - 1,735,142

2. Americans for Prosperity's "Wasteful Spending" - 1,233,786 views

3. Veterans for a Strong America's "Why does President Obama take so much credit for killing Bin Laden?" - 1,061,642

4. American Future Fund's - 967,011

5. American Crossroads' "Operation Hot Mic" - 509,591

6. American Crossroads' "Cool" - 476,239

7. Priorities USA Action's "Romney's World View" - 414,520

President Obama met with congressional leaders today and told House Speaker John Boehner that he will push for tax increases when the debt ceiling needs raising later this year.

"He refuses to allow a replay of last summer's [debt ceiling fight] that eroded confidence and hurt the American economy," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said of Obama during the briefing today. He added that when federal spending hits the debt ceiling this year, Obama will seek "not just discretionary spending cuts, not just entitlement reforms, but also revenues."

Carney faulted Boehner, who said yesterday that a raise in the debt ceiling must accompany equivalent spending cuts, for not "asking anything more from millionaires and billionaires."

President Obama famously claimed to know more about policy than his policy directors, but he didn't mention First Lady Michelle Obama, who comprises one half of a "stealth co-presidency" according to a new book on the Obamas.

Michelle Obama practically vetoed the choice of Hillary Clinton serving as vice president. "Do you really want Bill and Hillary just down the hall from you in the White House?" she asked Barack Obama, according to Edward Klein's The Amateur, who says that a New York State Democratic Party official told him "'Michelle certainly played a role' in selecting Joe Biden."

Justice Sonia Sotomayor owes a debt of gratitude to Mrs. Obama, as well. "The First Lady thought Sotomayor had all those . . . qualities her husband was looking for in an appointee," Klein quotes "a confidant" as saying. "Barack has always listened to what she has to say."

Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel was almost forced out of his job by the first lady after Obama sustained the embarrassment of campaigning for a doomed Martha Coakley in Massachusetts, whose loss to Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., cost the Democrats their super-majority in the Senate.

"Michelle told the president that he needed a new team of advisers, starting with Rahm Emanuel," Klein writes. "'She feels as if our rudder isn't set right,' the president told his aides. When Emanuel heard that, he strode into the Oval Office and submitted his resignation. It was turned down. But by then Emanuel's days were numbered."

Three years ago, President Obama cut a secret deal with pharmaceutical company lobbyists to secure the industry’s support for his national health care law. Despite Obama’s promises during his campaign to run a transparent administration, the deal has been shrouded in mystery ever since. But internal emails obtained by House Republicans now provide evidence that a deal was struck and GOP investigators are promising to release more details in the coming weeks.

“What the hell?” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina, who is now Obama’s campaign manager, complained to a lobbyist for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) in January 15, 2010 email. “This wasn’t part of our deal.”

This reference to “our deal” came two months before the final passage of Obamacare in an email with the subject line, “FW: TAUZIN EMAIL.” At the time, Billy Tauzin was president and CEO of PhRMA.

The email was uncovered as part of investigation into Obama’s closed-door health care negotiations launched by the House Energy and Commerce committee’s oversight panel.

“In the coming weeks the Committee intends to show what the White House agreed to do as part of its deal with the pharmaceutical industry and how the full details of this agreement were kept from both the public and the House of Representatives,” the committee’s Republican members wrote in a memo today.

On June 20, 2009, Obama released a terse 296-word statement announcing a deal between pharmaceutical companies and the Senate that didn’t mention any involvement by the White House.

 “The investigation has determined that the White House, primarily through Office of Health Reform Director Nancy Ann DeParle and Messina, with involvement from Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel, was actively engaged in these negotiations while the role of Congress was limited,” the committee members wrote. “For example, three days before the June 20 statement, the head of PhRMA promised Messina, ‘we will deliver a final yes to you by morning.’ Meanwhile, Ms. DeParle all but confirmed that half of the Legislative Branch was shut out in an email to a PhRMA representative: ‘I think we should have included the House in the discussions, but maybe we never would have gotten anywhere if we had.’”

Read the full memo here.