HE'S NOT ENOUGH OF A BOAT ROCKER TO DO SO...:

Obama's Double Talk (Robert J. Samuelson, March 9, 2009, Washington Post)

[L]et's assume that Obama wins reelection. By his last year, 2016, the economy presumably will have long recovered. What does his final budget look like? Well, it runs a $637 billion deficit, equal to 3.2 percent of the economy (gross domestic product), projects Obama's Office of Management and Budget. That would match Ronald Reagan's last deficit, 3.1 percent of GDP in 1988, so fiercely criticized by Democrats.

As a society, we should pay in taxes what it costs government to provide desired services. If benefits don't seem equal to burdens, then the spending isn't worth it. (Exceptions: deficits in wartime and economic slumps.)

If Obama were "responsible," he would conduct a candid conversation about the role of government. Who deserves support and why? How big can government grow before higher taxes and deficits harm economic growth? Although Obama claims to be doing this, he hasn't confronted entitlement psychology -- the belief that government benefits once conferred should never be revoked.

Is it in the public interest for the well-off elderly (say, a couple with $125,000 of income) to be subsidized, through Social Security and Medicare, by poorer young and middle-aged workers? Are any farm subsidies justified when they aren't essential for food production? We wouldn't starve without them.

...but if President Obama were to just work with the GOP to means test every dollar the federal government spends it would make his term worthwhile.

MORE:
Obama Hides Medicare Means-Testing in Plain Sight--In His Big Budget (John Aloysius Farrell, 3/09/09, Thomas Jefferson Street)

The problem—or maybe it's the genius—of Barack Obama's bold fiscal agenda is the way its sheer scope tends to dwarf some momentous policy choices hidden amid all those numbers.

Audacity's initial budget gives us an example. While everyone to the right of Evan Bayh has been hyperventilating about government spending, they've missed a rather historic moment: a Democratic president has proposed means-testing for Medicare.

Specifically, Audacity hopes to cull more than $8 billion from wealthy seniors by making the Part D prescription drug benefit more contingent on income.

It sounds like common sense. Then-President George W. Bush and GOP presidential candidate John McCain and Senate Republicans endorsed the idea last year. "Why should you be paying for my prescriptions?" the wealthy McCain asked his campaign audiences.

The answer rests in liberal dogma.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 9, 2009 7:24 AM