Most of us already agree that to truly solve our deficit problem, we need to find trillions in savings over the next decade, and significantly more in the decades that follow. That’s what the bipartisan fiscal commission said, that’s the amount that I put forward in the framework I announced a few months ago, and that’s around the same amount that Republicans have put forward in their own plans. And that’s the kind of substantial progress that we should be aiming for here.
To get there, I believe we need a balanced approach. We need to take on spending in domestic programs, in defense programs, in entitlement programs, and we need to take on spending in the tax code -- spending on certain tax breaks and deductions for the wealthiest of Americans. This will require both parties to get out of our comfort zones, and both parties to agree on real compromise.
So long Balanced Approach. Your one month in existence was compelling, but yet short lived.
R.I.P.
Apparently, the Balanced Approach never had a chance, even before it came into existence.
Partly to temper mounting discontent, Obama called House Democrats to the White House on June 2, a day after meeting with House Republicans, to hear their concerns about the debt negotiations.
It was a tense encounter, according to several accounts.
One Democrat who was there said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) bluntly asked Obama whether he was willing to fight for Democratic priorities amid GOP calls for trillions of dollars in spending cuts.
In asking the question, Waxman said he’d asked several Republicans about their White House meeting the day before and had been concerned by their response.
“To a person, they said the president’s going to cave,” Waxman told Obama, according to his colleague’s account.
“If you’re not going to cave, eliminating that misunderstanding is very, very important to the negotiations,” the lawmaker said, retelling Waxman’s message. “And if you’re going to cave, tell us right now.”
Obama, however, “didn’t answer the question,” the Democrat added. “Obama got in a huff, and he said, ‘I’m the president of the United States, my words carry weight’ — which is not the answer,” the lawmaker said. “That’s not what anyone challenges. It’s whether he is doing this negotiation in the right way.”
Unfortunately, actions speak louder than words.
The President spent a lot of political capital pushing the balanced approach. He put his Administration's credibility on the line. It is beginning to appear that their credibility is another casualty of this debate.
This is the type of defining moment that no President ever wants. The repercussions may be incurable.