Obama's early move in the new debt debate

To hear President Obama tell it, we are relatively close to turning the national debt into a manageable pet rather than a six-headed beast breathing fire on our finances. In his speech earlier this week, Obama said that what we need is to find a way for Republicans and Democrats to agree on $1.5 trillion in spending cuts and new tax revenue. If we can do this, we can keep the national debt at seventy-something percent of the projected gross GDP for the next decade or so. Sounds simple, right?

The number comes from some simple subtraction. During his campaign, Obama repeatedly said that we needed $4 trillion in savings over the next decade to keep the national debt under control. In his presidency so far, he claims to have achieved $2.5 trillion in savings over the next decade. Now we just have to handle the remaining $1.5 trillion.

The real question is still the same as it was during the roaring debate at the end of 2012: Where will those spending cuts and tax revenue come from?

For Democrats, the argument continues to be that raising taxes and closing tax loopholes for corporations and the super-rich will go a long way, and spreading out savings across domestic programs with programs like Obamacare will handle the job.

Conservatives continue to argue that not only is the solution more one-sided, it's more fundamental. From the right, the argument goes that taxes should not be raised one cent and costly programs like social security and health care need deep cuts to take the responsibility for social welfare off of the shoulders of the government and place it firmly on the general population.

The key here is that Obama has laid down an opening bid in what is sure to be a taxing debate over the next few weeks. I'd like to see it happen with Obamacare off the table. Can we at least have the debate about how to move forward happen without attacking a program that just got put into place?

Image courtesy of 401(K) 2013