Obama's Urges Will Not Lead to Act Of Congress

The actual headline from the NY Times was "Obama Urges Congress to Act to Stave Off Cuts."  No matter, the President again fails to lead, choosing merely to demagogue his opponents without proposing anything meaningful.

“They should at least pass a smaller package of spending cuts and tax reforms that would delay the economically damaging effects of the sequester for a few more months,”

So let's parse this.  The President refuses to offer any specific spending cuts.  He just got an increase in the tax rate on the rich, as well as an increase in their capital gains rate.  Now he wants more tax increases, but obfuscates his meaning with the words, "tax reform."  Further, he missed the deadline to propose a budget to Congress, by which he could have clarified his position. 

The final paragraph of the article hits the heart of the matter.  

While the budget office forecast that annual deficits will decline significantly as the economy recovers, the budget office once again emphasized that the deficit will rise later in the decade, beginning in 2016, and continue do to so as the population ages and health care prices rise.

The President refuses to countenance any reform to social security or medicare and his party demagogues those who suggest that the issue must be addressed.  He is harming the country.  The problem won't go away on its own.  Further, the sequestration battle deflects attention from a solution.  As a Democrat, Obama could save the nation by proposing sensible reform, because only bipartisan reform of these two largest entitlement programs will stave off fiscal catastrophe.  That he thinks only to use the issues for political gain does not speak well of him.