President Obama is releasing his budget tomorrow, which will reportedly include Social Security and veterans' disability benefit cuts in the form of the chained CPI. The budget would make $1.8 trillion in deficit reductions over 10 years, replacing the $1.2 trillion sequester, with $580 billion in revenue increases. That would be the revenue increases Republicans have consistently refused to accept.
Republicans have been so successful in resisting revenue increases, look at what they've achieved in the $2.3 trillion in savings they've negotiated in the past few years.
That means that, as
even some Republicans admit discretionary spending has been cut about as much as it can be, and that it's time to hit entitlements. That seems to be an argument President Obama is heeding.
Now, a truly balanced budget approach would be to get that revenue increase more in line with the spending cuts. That would be the principled, and smart, policy position. It'd be the right thing to do, and it would have the added bonus of showing just how extreme Republicans are on taxes.