Balance of Power

Here’s how she ends her video speech:

“This plan is not perfect. Among other things, we still need a plan for long-term fiscal responsibility and entitlement reform. The New Dems will work with House leadership and the administration to accomplish these goals. In the meantime, this legislation is too important to hold up waiting for the perfect bill. The cost to American families is too great to delay, or worse, to do nothing.”

House Democrats only lost 11 votes yesterday, almost all coming from fiscal conservatives. But the Senate vote is still ahead, and already deficit hawks like Kent Conrad of North Dakota, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, are expressing doubts.

President Obama has already been trying to reassure his party’s fiscal conservatives that he’ll take on the long-term budget issues at a later date, as he said when he spoke in favor of the financial bailout bill last fall. Tauscher’s video speech may help him hold them together for now, but it also carries a message for Obama: Don’t forget your promise.