April 10, 2013

Greg Sargent notes President Obama has included budget items specifically asked for by Sen. Mitch McConnell and Speaker John Boehner “to show he’s serious” but now it’s not good enough.

“In late December, a Boehner aide told Bloomberg News that the Speaker wanted Chained CPI more than other entitlement cuts, such as raising the Medicare eligibility age, as the two were negotiation over a possible cuts-for-revenues swap to avert the fiscal cliff.”

“And in late November, Mitch McConnell explicitly told the Wall Street Journal that if Obama offered entitlement changes such as Chained CPI and Medicare means testing, Republicans would consider new revenue. He actually said this: ‘those are the kinds of things that would get Republicans interested in new revenue.'”

The bottom line: “There is literally nothing that Obama can offer Republicans — not even things they themselves have asked for — that would induce them to agree to a compromise on new revenues.”

John Avlon says that President Obama’s budget released today “is not like all the others. It is not a positional bargaining document, designed simply to rally the base at the outset of negotiations. One way you can tell is that liberal activists and congressmen are already screaming ‘sellout’ at the White House for offering Social Security reform as part of a balanced plan to reduce the deficit and debt.”

“The Republican response so far has been crickets, and that throat clearing you hear in the distance might just be a recalibration before another reflexive ‘tax and spend liberal’ attack on the president.”

National Journal points out “the most important fiscal development of the week will hinge on the success of Obama’s dinner with 12 Republican senators tonight.”

A new Washington Post-ABC News finds 53% of self-identified Democrats view the income tax system favorably while 43% see it unfavorably. That’s a stark contrast to the 66% of Republicans and 62% of independents who have an unfavorable opinion of the tax system.

The White House “proposed a budget that sharply trims the U.S. deficit over three years by forcing millionaires to pay more in taxes and enacting spending cuts that replace the sequester reductions that went into place last month,” Reuters reports.

The budget blueprint “ensures that those making $1 million a year or more would have to pay at least 30 percent of their income, after gifts to charity, in taxes.”

Wonk Wire: Pay no attention to Obama’s budget.