After this years SOTU, I came to the conclusion that we're looking at a person of weak character with passive-aggressive tendencies.

Chambliss: Well, the fact of the matter is that you can't solve this debt problem just with reductions in discretionary spending. You can't solve it just by attacking and reforming entitlements. You've got to look at the revenue side also.

What we are looking at proposing is actually a reduction in corporate rates and personal individual income tax rates, which will put more money in people's pockets and we're going to do that with the reduction in tax expenditures. Every time we've done that in years past whether it was under President Reagan or president Bush we have seen revenues increase. And we've got to have an increase in revenues if we are going to retire this debt... revenues have to be on the table if we're serious about attacking that debt. link

People are going to give up the benefits of SS, Medicare and Medicaid under the guise of deficit reduction so that Obama and Congress can lower taxes for corporations and individuals. Of course in the Simpson-Bowles plan one of the offsets to the lower tax rates is the elimination of the Earned Income Credit. Once again, the poorest of the poor will lose the most, the middle class will get screwed and the wealthiest will reap the benefits.

I am seriously, seriously starting to believe we have a very psychologically impaired (stunted, really) individual as president. No, Daddy (oops, I mean the Republicans) will never love you, no matter how much you bend over. And the rest of us despise you. You have no core principles or morals of any kind. The suffering you have inflicted - and will continue to inflict - on the poorest among us is obscene.

Are we still playing 11-dimensional chess?  Or can we please, finally, face the ugly truth that Obama is standing firmly and confidently in Republican territory?  Which should really have people questioning his sanity, frankly.

If he's backing Simpson-Bowles, and he holds to the pattern of giving more concessions every time a Republican looks at him cross-eyed, this could be a bigger economic disaster than it even looked like less than a week ago.

but it is, at base, a more realistic plan both in terms of policy and politics.

No wet food, please, it goes right to my paws.

Will we at least be issued complimentary water bowls?

Obama, who campaigned o bipartisanship, says he's going to use the commissions determinations as a road map (according to this report).

We kill Obama because he didn't only take the ideas from the bipartisan commission that we liked and reject the rest, which destroys the concept of a bipartisan commission in the first place.

Mmmmkay.

Let me introduce our President to you because you must not have been hearing him for the last 4 years:

... just ain't gonna cut it.  Not with this.

hoocouldanode?!

who couldve suspected a man selected by the deep pockets of Blankfein and Dimon would cut SS...

who indeed.

but the really important thing is the MSM liked him right BTD?

that was the only real difference between Obama and HRC right BTD?

Yeah, that and a token will get you on a subway.

This guy is as different as can be from HRC. He has no fight in him and if he did, he would fight for the Wall St crowd.
Pathetic.

I will vote GOP so people can SEE why Dems were better, back when we had real Dems.

Allowing a GOPer in Dem clothing to govern merely makes people throw up their hands, say 'there is no difference' and give up.

And I think that is a feature, not a bug.

Since we are all on our own in this Brave New Obama world, we may as well vote like it, and that is where I am now.

Reporting from Washington--
President Obama will call for shrinking the nation's long-term deficits by raising taxes on wealthier Americans and requiring them to pay more into Social Security, drawing a barbed contrast with a Republican plan to save money by deeply slashing Medicare, Medicaid and other domestic spending.

Obama will offer some spending cuts, including trims to the Pentagon's budget, but his speech Wednesday is likely to provide Americans with a vivid choice between higher taxes or fewer benefits, issues that will color the national debate straight through the 2012 election.

Some "sleight-of-hand," as he calls it, accounts for some of the cuts.

Here are the troubling parts:

Starting with the NYT:

The spending bill would maintain the maximum Pell grant award for low-income students at $5,550. But it would end a new Pell grant program for summer school students, saving hundreds of millions of dollars.

President Obama successfully resisted Republican efforts to take all federal money from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. But the spending bill cuts money for the program that finances many family-planning services provided by Planned Parenthood and other organizations, Title X of the Public Health Service Act. The appropriation would be reduced to $300 million, from $317 million, Congressional aides said.

The Environmental Protection Agency, which has been in the cross hairs of the newly empowered House Republicans, took one of the largest hits, according the House appropriations documents.

The agency's budget under the agreement is reduced by $1.6 billion, or 16 percent from last year's level. Specifically, funding levels for Land and Water Conservation Fund programs were reduced 33 percent.

Dayen adds:

I'll just add a bit to that. Food safety is cut 1% below the previous year's level. The Labor Department program for green jobs has been cut. The Justice Department's asset forfeiture fund, which helps fund its criminal investigations, got a $500 million hit. The Special Supplemental Feeding Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) has been cut $500 million from 2010 levels. The total reduction in the Financial Services area, barely a year out from passing Dodd-Frank, approaches 10%. There's a $942 million cut to the Community Development Fund program, which is nearly 1/4 of the total. And two programs in the health care law, Kent Conrad's co-ops and Ron Wyden's Free Choice voucher, have been eliminated. The latter is particularly distressing

Why?  From DK:

Had Free Choice Vouchers survived, they would have given this group a third option: to take the tax free money that their employer would otherwise contribute to the cost of their health insurance and use it to buy a more affordable health insurance plan at the exchange. This provision would have meant that fewer Americans would have to go without health insurance and by leveraging private dollars versus relying solely on taxpayer funded subsidies, it would have ultimately saved money.

Do you suppose this could be a trial balloon floated by the WH to gauge reaction prior to his speech?