Opinion Journal:
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As political strategy, perhaps this will turn out to be shrewd. Republicans will advance their budget and spending cuts, Democrats will attack them, the voters will sour, and Mr. Obama will ride to re-election. It happened in 1996.
As leadership, however, this is an abdication that contradicts Mr. Obama's rhetorical flourishes about a new bipartisanship and the need "to merge, consolidate and reorganize the federal government." Beyond his welcome if vague support for reducing corporate tax rates in return for closing loopholes, Mr. Obama offered not a single new idea or spending cut. The bulk of his address was devoted to his familiar priorities that he said Republicans should spend more on. Green energy subsidies. High-speed rail!
At least the address had good timing, because less than 12 hours later the Congressional Budget Office released its annual budget review and exposed how deep the fiscal mess really is. Even CBO dared to call it "daunting," which for these budget gnomes is a primal scream.
Eighteen months after the recession formally ended, the federal deficit for fiscal 2011 (through September) is expected to increase once again, this time to $1.48 trillion, or 9.8% of GDP. That's a share of GDP topped since World War II only by the 10% reached in Mr. Obama's first year in office, when at least the recession was an excuse. The annual deficit in the 1980s never exceeded 6% of GDP.
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The problem is spending and Obama's freeze at the artificially high levels since he took office is not good enough. The fact if the matter is that the Democrats are irresponsible on current services spending and even more irresponsible in dealing with the coming problems on
Social Security and
Medicare/Medicaid.
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