WASHINGTON -- President Obama will lay out new plans this week to
reduce the federal deficit in part by seeking cuts to government
programs for seniors and the poor, a top political adviser said Sunday,
adding that Americans expect both sides to work together.
"You're going to have to look at Medicare and Medicaid and see what kind
of savings you can get," Obama adviser David Plouffe said on NBC's
"Meet the Press."
The presidential speech will come during a week in which official
Washington pivots from a painful standoff over this year's budget to
next year's and beyond, focusing on competing plans to shore up the
nation's fiscal health in the long term.
At the top of the week, congressional aides are expected to put to paper
the 2011 spending deal struck Friday night, an hour before the
government would have begun to shut down. Both houses of Congress were
expected to take up that measure at midweek. Next up is the much more
complex fight over the election-year budget in 2012. Other, related
questions loom, such as whether to raise the nation's debt ceiling.
It's all part of a broader debate over how the government provides for
the nation's neediest while strengthening the economy. What's usually a
debate about federal spending had shifted into talks about where to cut,
and both parties took aim at the chief federal health programs for the
elderly and the poor, Medicare and Medicaid.
Republicans celebrated the thematic win.
"We've had to bring this president kicking and screaming to the table to
cut spending," said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., on "Fox
News Sunday."
Plouffe, Obama's messenger, shuttled around the dial, seeking to link
December's bipartisan deal on tax cuts with Friday night's nail-biter
agreement on this year's budget as evidence that both parties can govern
together when they want to.
"Compromise is not a dirty word," Plouffe said on ABC's "This Week."
The president, Plouffe said, would address ways to reduce the deficit
and the long-term, $14 trillion debt. He gave few specifics, but he said
the president believes taxes should go up on higher-income Americans
and that cuts to Medicare and Medicaid will be necessary.
Obama's speech will come as the debate shifts to the far more delicate
ground of the budget paying for the government next year - when the
president and most of Congress are up for re-election.
Republicans said Friday night's deal in no way means they're ready to
compromise on the fiscal debates ahead, starting with the House
Republicans' $3.5 trillion spending plan for next year.
The GOP blueprint, unveiled last week by Budget Committee Chairman Paul
Ryan, R-Wis., would slash federal spending by $5 trillion or more over
the coming decade and repeal Obama's signature health care law. It would
leave Social Security untouched but shift more of the risk from rising
medical costs from the government to Medicare beneficiaries. It also
calls for sharp cuts to Medicaid health care for the poor and disabled
and to food aid for the poor.
In events over the next week, Democrats planned to cast the GOP plan as a
devastating assault on Americans who need government help the most.