President Obama will fire his first salvo Wednesday in yet another raging debate about the scope of federal spending, using a national address to stake out the middle ground on looming legislative battles over entitlement programs, the nation’s debt limit and an upcoming budget that would fall on deaf Republican ears without significant reductions. Such a move, however, would move Obama to the political center, much as he did in extending the so-called Bush tax cuts and agreeing to $38 billion in budget cuts to avert a government shutdown. But it also poses risks that the president would further alienate an already wary political base with dramatic cuts.
“There is some risk,” said Alan Abramowitz, a political science professor at Emory University, noting that while the public has clamored for deficit reduction, polls repeatedly show voters against higher taxes or entitlement reductions needed to balance the budget. “But given where we are, the president has to step forward.”
Administration officials said the president will call for reforms of the Medicare and Medicaid entitlements and cuts in defense spending while pushing for the elimination of tax breaks for those making more than $250,000 annually.
Obama joins the debate more than a week after House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., unveiled his blueprint to slash government spending by as much as $6 trillion more than the president called for over the next decade.
While Obama will underscore his own commitment to reduce spending, he will likely deride Ryan’s plan as a collection of draconian cuts that squeezes seniors and the poor to pay for tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans.
“It’s pretty clear that a substantial portion of his own party would prefer him just to beat up on the Ryan proposal,” said William Galston, a policy adviser to former President Clinton. “The Obama team obviously feels differently. They would like to shore up support outside of their base. We’ll see whether they’re right.”
Obama didn’t propose any changes to Medicare or Medicaid in his own 2012 budget proposal, even though his deficit commission recommended such reforms. But he said he would seek bipartisan compromise on entitlements and the budget, much as he had on tax cuts even as the White House rejected the Republican plan.
“You can’t simply slash entitlements, lower taxes and call it a fair deal,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said of Ryan’s plan.
Congress also must decide soon whether to raise the debt limit so the government can continue to borrow money and Republican are likely to tie any increase in that limit to long-term budget cuts. Carney charged that Republicans risked “catastrophic folly” if they failed to raise the debt limit even though then-Sen. Obama voted against such an increase in 2006. Carney said the president now considers that decision “a mistake.”
Critics say that by waiting to plant his flag on ballooning Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid costs, Obama has already ceded ground to Republicans on an issue that has become increasingly important to mainstream voters.
“The most you could reasonably expect is that he would embrace his own fiscal commission,” Andrew Biggs of the American Enterprise Institute said. “I doubt he’ll go even close to that.”
