Brian Beutler January 27, 2011, 12:14 PM

The Obama administration is keeping its powder dry on the question of how it’ll manage the government if the GOP gets its way and cuts domestic spending by 20 percent. That’s an outcome they’d obviously like to avoid. But as long as it remains a possibility, two things are clear: first, after laying out its own budget priorities, the White House will keep fairly quiet while waiting for the GOP to lay out its counter-proposal. And second, Obama won’t let Republicans use the budget process as a backdoor to defanging or destroying the health care law.

At a roundtable meeting with reporters and bloggers Wednesday afternoon, White House political adviser David Axelrod outlined the administration’s plan to bridge the spending impasse. But he declined to elaborate when asked if the administration could meet its priorities if Congress cuts spending dramatically.

“[W]e don’t have to envision that right now because it’s not our proposal,” Axelrod said. “We’re waiting for them to make — they obviously envision it. And we’re waiting to see how that could be accomplished.”

“Perhaps there’s something that we’re not thinking of,” Axelrod added coyly.

Viewed one way, it’s a little bit alarming that a senior White House official would claim not to have a contingency plan in place to manage the executive branch’s affairs under a new, more austere spending paradigm. But from another angle it makes perfect sense that Axelrod won’t tip his hand one way or another. If he says, “sure, we’ll manage,” he hands the game to the GOP.

The White House is drawing one bright line, though.

“[W]e’re not going to allow the budget process to be a back-door avenue to undermine the fundamental intent of the [health care] law,” Axelrod said.

Implicit in the GOP’s calls for returning to 2008 spending levels is the idea that the government was the right size before Obama signed the health care and Wall Street reform laws. They have signaled, at times overtly, that they want to use the budget process to undermine those achievements.

On that score, the White House is resolute.

“I would not conclude in any way that we were opening the door to that, nor will we accept that,” Axelrod said.

Barack Obama, Budget, David Axelrod, Health Care, Spending, Wall Street, White House