President Obama Has a Deficit Plan. He Just Won't Tell You About It.
I've criticized the Romney campaign on a number of occasions for refusing to offer crucial details on major policy proposals. But it's worth reiterating that the Obama team is also dancing around numerous difficult questions about what policies President Obama would pursue in a second term.
In particular, Obama has been dicey about what he would do to manage the long-term deficit. As Obama's Treasury Secretary told Rep. Paul Ryan earlier this year, "We don't have a definitive solution…We just don't like yours." There are also numerous holes in the plans the White House has put forward. As The Wall Street Journal reports:
President Barack Obama's most recent budget called for spending equal to 22.3% of GDP in 2016. But it didn't specify what tax breaks would be cut as part of a proposal to lower the corporate tax rate from 35% to 28% or detail how to slow the growth of spending on Medicare or Social Security.
Nor has Mr. Obama made public the details of proposals he made in unsuccessful talks with House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) last summer, such as raising the eligibility age for Medicare from 65 to 67, a notion both Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan have endorsed.
Administration officials are preparing new deficit-reduction proposals to be released if Mr. Obama is re-elected, but see no political advantage in previewing them now, people familiar with the process said.
So Obama has a deficit plan. But it's a secret deficit plan.
