By REID J. EPSTEIN and EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE | 2/20/14 1:34 PM EST Updated: 2/21/14 5:36 AM EST
President Barack Obama is done pretending that he’ll get any new budget cooperation from House Republicans.
His proposed 2015 budget, due to be released next month, will stick to the economic strategy the White House has laid out without the compromise suggestion he floated last year, White House officials said Thursday.
By REID J. EPSTEIN and EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE | 2/20/14 1:34 PM EST Updated: 2/21/14 5:36 AM EST
President Barack Obama is done pretending that he’ll get any new budget cooperation from House Republicans.
His proposed 2015 budget, due to be released next month, will stick to the economic strategy the White House has laid out without the compromise suggestion he floated last year, White House officials said Thursday.
Gone, the White House said, is Obama’s proposal for chained CPI — an offer to reduce the the benefit increases for Social Security and other federal social programs.
And gone with it, senior administration officials said Thursday, is any sense of presidential urgency on long-term entitlement reform. It’s still something Obama believes in, they said, and would like to do — but changing economics and mathematics have meant a change in his approach.
The president’s 10-year projection in the budget will show the deficit down to 2 percent of the GDP and the debt-to-GDP ratio lower than in previous administrations.
Administration officials said the earlier offer of chained CPI — which many Democrats revolted against — was what they called a show of good faith, made in the aftermath of the fiscal cliff deal and with the sequester cuts looming.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/02/obama-2015-budget-chained-cpi-103732.html#ixzz2tyxI7OZp