The WSJ is reporting, based on reports from "people familiar with speech preparations," that President Obama will not offer specific plans on the budget in the State of the Union, and will not call for Social Security cuts, but will call for changes.
The president is expected to call for "shared sacrifice" from both parties, and to reach out to the GOP with a nod to possibly lowering the nation's corporate income-tax rate as part of an overhaul of the corporate-tax code, according to people familiar with speech preparations....
The president will try to keep the deficit conversation in broad terms, fearing that detailed proposals would put Republicans, Democrats and Washington interest groups into a defensive crouch before real negotiations can take place, according to those officials. White House officials, for instance, have assured Democratic lawmakers that the president will not explicitly call for cuts in Social Security benefits, though he will say changes are needed to put the program on a solid fiscal footing.
At the same time, Mr. Obama will call on both parties to be prepared to put everything on the table. That means Democrats have to be ready to look at changes to Social Security, and Republicans to consider tax-code changes to increase revenue.
Gee, guess who wins that poker game, pitting Social Security against taxes. Social Security off the table would be a much more encouraging message for not just Obama's base, but for the large majority of Americans who, in poll after poll, say to keep hands off Social Security. It's worked for presidents in the past, as EJ Dionne reminds us today.
Here is Obama's big opportunity. The reasons behind Bill Clinton's comeback after the 1994 elections have been widely misread. Clinton didn't kowtow to the new GOP Congress. He battled their cuts in "Medicare, Medicaid, education and the environment" and beat them. Republican overreach helped Clinton redefine the political center in a way that put the GOP's congressional leaders outside its ambit. Newt Gingrich and his followers then scrambled back Clinton's way, and that's when the dealmaking began....
Any proposal to raise the Social Security retirement age is a nonstarter because there is no reason to waste political capital on Social Security cuts that would do nothing to close the nation's deficit within any reasonable time period.
On this issue, the Washington establishment is entirely out of touch with the heartland. It's easy for columnists, CEOs, investment bankers and senators to work beyond 68 or 70. It's not so easy for construction workers, nurse's aides, firefighters or retail salespeople on their feet all day.
The political center of the country, not the Washington establishment, has made Social Security sacrosanct. That's the political center Obama should be joining, and redefining to do just as Clinton did--use it as a pivot point against the extreme Republicans. Dionne is spot on. Raising the retirement age seems to be the consensus change, following the catfood commission recommendations, and the push to do it isn't going to go away, unless Democrats, led by their president, refuse to do it.