Obama Gets Tough

Photo by Chip Somodevilla (Getty)

Two weeks ago I wrote a post urging the President to "fight or go home" as it relates to his attempts to negotiate with the immovable object which is the Republican Congressional block. The President has made numerous "across the aisle" overtures, and time and again, these efforts have yielded little or nothing.

I have begun to believe that the President can get more flies with a hammer than he has been able to get with honey, and based on his recently announced approach to addressing the budget deficit, the President now sees it that way too.

President Obama has laid out a common sense approach to reducing the deficit, simultaneously increasing revenues and reducing spending, while putting sacred cows from each party on the table (reductions in Medicare spending and increases in taxes on the wealthiest Americans). Those who have nothing to offer but unhelpfully entrenched policy positions have already attempted to distract us from the real issues calling the President's budget deficit proposal "class warfare." In defense of his proposal, President Obama has responded saying, "This is not class warfare. It is math." Well said, Mr. President.

Class warfare would be something like increasing taxes on the wealthy (and on corporations) in order to fund increases in the social programs that most benefit the under-privileged poor. President Obama is NOT proposing this, he is simply asking us to do what every struggling small business owner or head of household knows he or she has to do - make more and spend less at the same time.

I hope politicians on both sides come to understand how their insistence on sacred cows and their refusal to participate in real policy negotiations do nothing to resolve our complex economic challenges. I also hope that Americans on both sides demonstrate through their votes in the next election cycle that we deserve and expect more from our elected officials in Washington.