WASHINGTON — President Obama next week will take the political risk of formally proposing cuts to Social Security and Medicare
in his annual budget in an effort to demonstrate his willingness to
compromise with Republicans and revive prospects for a long-term
deficit-reduction deal, administration officials say.
In a significant shift in fiscal strategy, Mr. Obama on Wednesday will
send a budget plan to Capitol Hill that departs from the usual
presidential wish list that Republicans typically declare dead on
arrival. Instead it will embody the final compromise offer that he made
to Speaker John A. Boehner late last year, before Mr. Boehner abandoned
negotiations in opposition to the president’s demand for higher taxes
from wealthy individuals and some corporations.
Congressional Republicans have dug in against any new tax revenues after
higher taxes for the affluent were approved at the start of the year.
The administration’s hope is to create cracks in Republicans’ antitax
resistance, especially in the Senate, as constituents complain about the
across-the-board cuts in military and domestic programs that took
effect March 1.
Mr. Obama’s proposed deficit reduction would replace those cuts. And if
Republicans continue to resist the president, the White House believes
that most Americans will blame them for the fiscal paralysis.
Besides the tax increases that most Republicans continue to oppose, Mr. Obama’s budget
will propose a new inflation formula that would have the effect of
reducing cost-of-living payments for Social Security benefits, though
with financial protections for low-income and very old beneficiaries,
administration officials said. The idea, known as chained C.P.I., has
infuriated some Democrats and advocacy groups to Mr. Obama’s left, and
they have already mobilized in opposition.
As Mr. Obama has before, his budget documents will emphasize that he
would support the cost-of-living change, as well as other reductions
that Republicans have called for in the popular programs for older
Americans, only if Republicans agree to additional taxes on the wealthy
and infrastructure investments that the president called for in last
year’s offer to Mr. Boehner.
Mr. Obama will propose other spending and tax credit initiatives,
including aid for states to make free prekindergarten education
available nationwide — a priority outlined in his State of the Union address in February. He will propose to pay for it by raising federal taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products.
“The president has made clear that he is willing to compromise and do
tough things to reduce the deficits, but only in the context of a
package like this one that has balance and includes revenues from the
wealthiest Americans and that is designed to promote economic growth,”
said a senior administration official, who, like others, declined to be
identified confirming details about the coming budget.
“That means,” the official added, “that the things like C.P.I. that
Republican leaders have pushed hard for will only be accepted if
Congressional Republicans are willing to do more on revenues.”
But just this week, Representative Eric Cantor, Republican of Virginia,
the House majority leader, reiterated the party’s antitax stance and
called for reducing spending by cutting waste and making changes in
federal programs. The growth in the so-called entitlement programs,
especially for health care, is a main driver behind projections of
mounting federal debt as baby boomers age and medical costs rise.
Mr. Obama’s budget
was due in February but administration officials said it was delayed by
the year-end fiscal negotiations and resulting tax changes. It will
arrive on Capitol Hill hours before the president dines on Wednesday
evening with a dozen Senate Republicans — his second such parlay in
recent weeks.
While the group is likely to also discuss gun-safety and immigration legislation, the timing of Mr. Obama’s budget release is all but certain to make it a prime topic.
Some Senate Republicans have been urging the president to speak out more
to Americans about his ideas for reducing the growth of entitlement
programs. While the White House posted the offer to Mr. Boehner on its
Web site this year, aides previously said that Mr. Obama would not
include its provisions in his official budget documents. To do so, some
said, would expose him to Democrats’ criticism that he is too quick to
compromise and allow Republicans to embrace the proposals for spending
cuts, in particular the C.P.I., but ignore those for tax increases.
Neither the president nor senior aides privately hold much hope that
Republican leaders — Mr. Boehner and Senator Mitch McConnell of
Kentucky, the Senate Republican leader — will compromise. So Mr. Obama’s
strategy of reaching out to other Senate Republicans reflects a
calculation that enough of them might cut a budget deal with the
Democratic Senate majority. If that happens, the reasoning goes, a
Senate-passed compromise would put pressure on the House to go along.
According to administration officials, the president’s budget plan would
reduce projected annual deficits by $1.8 trillion over 10 years, even
with the select spending increases. To offset the initiatives’ cost and
avoid adding to deficits, Mr. Obama will propose the tobacco tax
increase, a limit of $3 million on how much people can accumulate in
tax-preferred savings accounts and repeal of a loophole that allows
people to collect both disability and unemployment benefits.
Together with the $2.5 trillion in deficit reductions that Mr. Obama and
Congressional Republicans have agreed to since 2010, that would bring
the total deficit reduction to more than $4.3 trillion over 10 years by
the administration’s computations — just over the goal that both parties
have set for stabilizing the growth of the national debt.
The deficit, which for this fiscal year is expected to be equal to 5.5
percent of the size of the economy, as measured by the gross domestic
product, would decline to 1.7 percent by 2023, according to officials.
Of the more than $2.5 trillion to date in projected 10-year budget
savings, nearly 80 percent would result from spending cuts. The rest
would derive from tax increases on high incomes that became law on Jan.
1, in the tax agreement that the two parties reached at year-end when
the efforts for a broader deficit-reduction deal collapsed.
Mr. Obama’s proposals to reduce deficits $1.8 trillion more over a
decade track his offer to Mr. Boehner, adjusted for the roughly $600
billion in higher taxes that became law in January. He will propose more
than $600 billion in new revenues — his last offer had called for $1.2
trillion in taxes — mostly by limiting to 28 percent the deductions that
individuals in higher tax brackets can claim. Congress has ignored that
idea in past years.
Deficits would be reduced another $930 billion through 2023 as a result
of spending cuts and other cost-saving changes to domestic programs, and
$200 billion more due to reduced interest payments on the federal debt.
Mr. Obama’s proposed spending reductions include about $400 billion from
health programs and $200 billion from other areas, including farm
subsidies, federal employee retirement programs, the Postal Service and
the unemployment compensation system.
In Medicare, the savings would mostly come from payments to health care
providers, including hospitals and pharmaceutical companies, but Mr.
Obama also proposes that higher-income beneficiaries pay more for
coverage.
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