President Obama's Fiscal Plan

CW: Most of the underlying narrative in President Obama's speech was the same stuff you've been hearing from liberals all your life. If you thought it was refreshing and "new," it's because you haven't heard Barack Obama say it since, oh, say, 2008. BUT. For what it's worth, because I haven't seen anyone mention it, let me just add that the most effective theme in the speech was this one:

I believe it paints a vision of our future that is deeply pessimistic. It’s a vision that says if our roads crumble and our bridges collapse, we can’t afford to fix them. If there are bright young Americans who have the drive and the will but not the money to go to college, we can’t afford to send them. -- Barack Obama

     ... Casting the entire Republican philosophy of governance as pessimistic is brilliant. And it's true. This will hit a chord with voters (and, please, this was a one-hundred percent political speech) of all persuasions. Americans don't like pessimists. They like to win. They want the U.S. to "Win the Future" (a catchphrase, as Krugman says, that should earn its author an assignment "to count yurts in Outer Mongolia"). WTF.

New York Times Editors: "Negotiations with an implacable opposition are about to get much tougher, but it was a relief to see Mr. Obama standing up for the values that got him to the table." Comments are here.

Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic: "If there is an essence of the liberal vision for America..., it's the idea that a modern, enlightened society promises economic security to all, notwithstanding illness, accident of birth, or age.... In the era of Roosevelt and Truman, Kennedy and Johnson, Democrats talked openly and proudly of this mission. But in the last few years, at least, Democrats have seemed less comfortable with such rhetoric.... This contrast has been vivid in fights over the economy, climate change, and health care, with Democrats making sensible, nuanced arguments about growth rates and Republicans making hyperbolic, simplistic claims about 'socialism.' Not on Wednesday."

Rick Hertzberg: "Given the position his own reluctance, until now, to stake out a clear ideological divide had left him in, Obama succeeded in constructing a reasonably solid fortification for the fiscal battles to come."

Adam Serwer of American Prospect: "... despite the signs the president might tack right on this issue, he basically ended up giving the most full-throated rhetorical defense of American liberalism I think I've ever heard him give."

"The Umpire Strikes Back." Jon Chait of The New Republic: President Obama "beat Ryan and the Republicans to a bloody pulp.... He expressed moral outrage in a way I've never heard him do before, and in a way I didn't think he was capable of."

Massimo Calabresi of Time: "President Obama didn't offer a lot of specifics about how he intends to close the federal budget deficit in his speech at GW Wednesday, but he did make one thing clear: he intends to go head-to-head with Republicans over taxes."

Robert Greenstein of the Center for Budget & Policy Priorities looks at the numbers & doesn't like 'em: "Because the Obama plan relies on budget cuts for two-thirds of its deficit reduction measures, it goes dangerously far in ... cuts in mandatory programs other than Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security," i.e., "in core programs for low-income Americans, our most vulnerable people.... Another significant concern stems from the President’s proposal to limit the annual growth in Medicare costs per beneficiary to the per capita rate of growth in the ... GDP plus only 0.5 percentage points and to require automatic cuts in Medicare if this target would otherwise be exceeded. ... Finally, the President’s plan calls for a mechanism to trigger automatic reductions in programs and tax expenditures if the debt would exceed certain benchmarks.... But all triggers like this that have been designed in the past have ... required the deepest budget cuts when the economy was weakest and the smallest cuts when it was strongest — the opposite of what sound economic policy entails.... It should be recognized that this plan is a rather conservative one, significantly to the right of the Rivlin-Domenici plan." ...

     ... Update: commenting on Greenstein's analysis, which he endorses, Paul Krugman writes of Obama's budget proposal, "... it’s a center-right plan already; if it’s the starting point for negotiations that move the solution toward lower taxes for the rich and even harsher cuts for the poor, just say no."

President Obama, speaking at George Washington University, presents his plan to reduce the deficit. Video of full speech:

Here are the President's full remarks, as prepared for delivery. ...

... On the Ryan/Republican Budget Plan: Worst of all, this is a vision that says even though America can’t afford to invest in education or clean energy; even though we can’t afford to care for seniors and poor children, we can somehow afford more than $1 trillion in new tax breaks for the wealthy.... In the last decade, the average income of the bottom 90% of all working Americans actually declined. The top 1% saw their income rise by an average of more than a quarter of a million dollars each. And that’s who needs to pay less taxes? ... That’s not right, and it’s not going to happen as long as I’m President. The fact is, their vision is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact in America.... There’s nothing serious about a plan that claims to reduce the deficit by spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. There’s nothing courageous about asking for sacrifice from those who can least afford it and don’t have any clout on Capitol Hill. -- Barack Obama

NEW. Here's the White House's fact sheet on the President's proposal for a long-term budget framework.

The New York Times comparison between major features of Ryan's & Obama's plans demonstrates how Obama is more in line with what pollsters say the majority of American people want.

Paul Krugman: "Much better than many of us feared. Hardly any Bowles-Simpson — yay!"

Steve Benen: "President Obama's speech ... was exactly the sort of spirited defense of government and progressive values the nation desperately needed to hear right now."

Kevin Drum of Mother Jones wonders how this will play out:

In December, I agreed to extend the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans because it was the only way I could prevent a tax hike on middle-class Americans. But we cannot afford $1 trillion worth of tax cuts for every millionaire and billionaire in our society. And I refuse to renew them again. -- Barack Obama

Meow! Suzy Khimm of Mother Jones: in anticipation of President Obama's surprise speech in which he reputedly was going to rely on Catfood Commission recommendations, mainstream Democrats shifted to the right to suddenly embrace the Catfood Commission, which they had previously condemned or criticized. CW: now that Obama has given his speech, in which he barely mentioned the Katzenjammer Kids, what will the disoriented Dems do next? They were against it before they were for it before they were against it again? Having no principles makes life confusing.