Did Obama Deficit Speech Reveals His Core Beliefs?

In a column in the Washington Post, Fareed Zakaria maintains that Obama's speech yesterday on the nation's budget deficit mess revealed Obama's "core beliefs." If if it did -and I frankly increasingly question whether Obama has ANY core beliefs - the question is will Obama actually fight for these beliefs and for a change do more than give pretty speeches only to become missing in action when the going gets tough and a true leader is needed. I'd like to believe that just perhaps this time things with Obama may be different, but at this point, I will believe it only when I see it. Obama has punted his leadership role too many times over the last two years. Here are highlights from the Post column and readers can make their own decision on whether or not we can trust Obama this time around:
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President Obama made one of the most important speeches of his presidency on Wednesday. It was an eloquent defense of his basic approach to government and outlined specifically how he would tackle the nation’s long-term debt problems. For people who have been searching for Barack Obama’s core beliefs, this speech is perhaps the single best place to start — though it fell short in one important aspect.
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Obama revealed himself to be a left-of-center Democrat, but not very far left. To begin with, he accepts the proposition that the deficit is America’s biggest challenge; proposed a set of measures that would reduce the deficit, with large spending cuts in all programs and — crucially — proposed a fail-safe so that if the deficit targets are not met, Congress would immediately cut spending further or raise more taxes.
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Obama presented a vision of an activist government that will make crucial investments in education, infrastructure and research. These investments have been as much a part of American history, he noted, as a vibrant market economy. Without such government support, there would be no American semiconductor industry, no early adoption of computers, no Internet, no global-positioning system.
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Obama also pointed out that other countries are investing heavily in these areas. Since 1998, for example, China has tripled the percentage of its gross domestic product devoted to education. The number of college students quintupled, from 1 million in 1997 to 5.5 million in 2007. Public funding for universities is collapsing in America while growing massively in China. In this increasingly competitive landscape, should we further cut education?
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On taxes, the president’s position is correct and inevitable. For a generation, we have kept taxes low as spending crept ever higher, and we made up the difference by borrowing. . . . . America’s tax burden will have to rise; the real debate is simply in what manner. Tax reform — closing loopholes and deductions — is clearly the best approach.
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Then there are the entitlement programs. Here, Obama was at his most eloquent but least pragmatic. He made a passionate case for maintaining a basic social safety net for all, particularly the elderly and the poor, that I think will resonate with most Americans. But he lost his courage in proposing sensible reforms to these programs.
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For Social Security, we should also raise the retirement age, means-test benefits and change the indexing formula. As a society, we must determine roughly what percentage of the federal budget will pay for entitlement programs rather than simply allowing demographics and escalating costs to drive these costs ever higher.
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I praised Paul Ryan for his courage in presenting a budget that takes risks and proposes painful cuts. It has also had the effect of spurring Barack Obama to present his own serious proposal. I prefer Obama’s approach — which is also closer to that of the Simpson-Bowles commission — with more cuts to entitlements. But what’s critical is that, finally, after years of kicking the can down the road, we are having the national debate about America’s future.