President Obama is set to propose his own deficit reduction plan some time later in the week. It’s a bit of a mystery exactly what will be in it, but it seems he may actually step tentatively on the third rail of entitlements (cutting with a “scalpel” rather than a “machete”—Plouffe’s words, not mine, and is that racist of Plouffe?), and propose to ratchet up taxes on his favorite cash cows, the rich.
Ah, it seems only yesterday—but it actually was about two months ago—when Obama unveiled his own budget proposal, which curiously enough avoided the issue of how to reduce the deficit. It seems it wasn’t until Paul Ryan advanced the Republican plan for deficit reduction that Obama decided to counter it with his own, although he’d had plenty of time to do so earlier.
Some Democrats are puzzled and nervous as to what’s up, as well they might be. And this sort of spin from the White House doesn’t illuminate much of anything:
Obama advisers reject any suggestion that the president has changed course or philosophy since the midterm shellacking. “It would be revisionist history to view this as a change in philosophy,” Pfeiffer said. “It’s really a change in the state of the economy. That means the actions we took in the first two years, and particularly at the beginning of the administration, are not necessary right now.”
It’s hard to imagine that could possibly be enough to counter accusations such as the following, nicely put by Rep. Eric Cantor:
…'[W]e had to bring this president kicking and screaming to the table to cut spending” in last week’s 2011 budget negotiations. “It’s really hard to believe what this White House and the president is saying.”
My take? Obama wants to seize some of the ground Ryan occupies now, because he sees the Ryan proposal as both a threat and an opportunity to push his own tax hikes and to do a little dancing around entitlements without really suggesting the hard stuff. He could barely care less about deficit reduction, but he knows it’s popular right now and after all he’s in a campaign. His top priority is getting re-elected. If the Democrats don’t like it—well, there’s still some room under that commodious bus for the lot of them.
Obama is not the least bit concerned about consistency, nor about the charge of hypocrisy. One of his earliest traits as a campaigner was turning on a dime if he thought it would be of strategic benefit to him, and he also learned that he could get away with it. Remember when he broke his campaign financing pledge back in 2007? No problem whatsoever for the press and for those voters who’d already fallen in love with him.
If he performs a similar about-face now, and suggests cuts in programs that Democrats favor, I doubt they’ll look the other way. Patience is running thin. His compromise on the temporary budget is seen by many as weakness, caving, lack of leadership. This may be seen the same way—it really depends on the details, which will be revealed soon enough.