The Wall Street Journal - Senators Push Obama on Deficit

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By John McKinnon

More than 60 senators sent a letter to President Barack Obama Friday urging him to "engage" on long-term deficit reduction, a sign of legislative momentum on the issue and impatience with the White House.

The letter doesn't necessarily signal imminent action in Congress on the politically painful decisions that likely would be required to rein in future deficits. But it suggests a working majority of the Senate--which is often slow to act on big issues--wants to begin addressing the nation's long-term fiscal problems. The 64 signers included 32 senators from each party.

A White House spokeswoman welcomed the move, while defending the administration's efforts to date.

"We believe it's a positive development anytime Democrats and Republicans come together to work on one of our nation's toughest challenges, and we will continue to work with members of Congress from both sides of the aisle to rein in our deficit, grow our economy and win the future," said spokeswoman Amy Brundage.

Congressional Democrats and Republicans continue to be divided over how to reduce deficits. Options under discussion include reductions in the long-term growth of popular entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security, as well as tax increases.

The appeal to Mr. Obama may put new pressure on him to act and suggests he likely would have to take a leading role if any deal is to be reached before the 2012 election.

"The ball is very clearly in the president's court," said Sen. Mike Johanns (R., Neb.), one of the two senators who organized the letter initiative. "We need his leadership. …We won't have any chance unless the president joins with us."

Sen. Michael Bennet (D., Colo.), who came up with the idea for the letter, said Mr. Obama deserves credit for creating a blue-ribbon panel last year that made sweeping recommendations for change in entitlements and tax policy. A bipartisan group of six senators is working on ways to implement those proposals.

"Now what we've seen is there's even more interest," beyond the group of six senators, in developing a plan to ease the nation's fiscal problems, Mr. Bennet said. The absence of any major player from the debate, however, "is going to make it impossible," he warned.

Deficit hawks have criticized Mr. Obama for failing to use his annual budget release in February to lay out a comprehensive deficit-reduction plan.

A new analysis released Friday by the Congressional Budget Office suggests Mr. Obama's new budget does even less to rein in deficits than the administration has estimated. CBO, which found several administration assumptions overly optimistic, said federal deficits would total $9.5 trillion between 2012 and 2021 under Mr. Obama's proposals, compared with the administration's $7.2 trillion estimate.

House Republicans are expected to put forward targets for spending reductions in Medicare and other entitlement programs in April, when they release their budget for the 2012 fiscal year. It is unclear whether the GOP plan would bring additional energy to deficit-reduction talks.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said he expected the House Republican budget to "keep in place tax breaks for the very wealthy" and "significantly cut important investments."

"That's when the conversation's joined," he said.

Budget Committee Republicans didn't respond to requests for comment. A senior House GOP aide noted the large number of Democratic senators who signed Friday's letter, effectively acknowledging the need to address the issue. "He [Mr. Obama] can't play ostrich on this stuff much longer," the aide said.

Signers of the letter included several notable figures in the Senate budget debate, such as Majority Whip Richard Durbin (D., Ill.) and Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D., N.D.), as well as Sen. Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.), the GOP conference chairman. Other signers included Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.), Sen. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio) and Sen. Tom Harkin, (D., Iowa)

The risks to both parties in altering entitlements remain high. Democrats lost senior voters by 21 percentage points in 2010, according to a recent Lake Research Partners analysis, in part because of Republican attacks against Democrats over future Medicare reductions contained in last year's landmark health-care legislation.

Democrats also have lost much of the advantage they traditionally held over Republicans among voters on which party would better handle Social Security, the analysis said. But the pendulum could swing back if Republicans go too far in their plans.

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