Obama leaves out the details

It's good to see the compromiser-in-chief pick a fight.

President Barack Obama was clear yesterday about what he won't do to reduce the federal deficit. But he needs to be just as clear about what he will do. On that score his long-awaited speech on his approach to cleaning up the federal government's red ink fell disappointingly short.

He attacked the vision Republicans laid out last week of a nation that can't afford to continue comprehensive medical care for the elderly and disabled or invest in the future, but can afford a trillion dollars in tax cuts for the rich. "That's not right, and it's not going to happen as long as I'm president," he said. Preserving the nation's guarantee of health care for the elderly and disabled, and making sure that everybody pays a fair share of taxes, are good fights to have. The Republican approach of doing less and paying less is a pessimistic view of the nation's future.

But Obama was troublingly vague when it came to spelling out an alternative he's committed to fighting for.

He set a goal of $4 trillion in deficit reduction over 12 years, which is not much different from the target House Republicans set in the 2012 budget plan they released last week. He said all spending has to be on the table, including military spending, which the Republican plan left essentially untouched. But he provided no blueprint for slashing Pentagon spending.

On Medicare and Medicaid, he acknowledged the obvious: that the exploding cost for those programs has to be contained. But he offered only untested, long-range measures from last year's health care reform law to rein in the overall cost of medical care.

And while he called for the perfectly reasonable approach of allowing the recently extended Bush tax cuts to expire for the rich at the end of 2012, and simplifying the federal tax code by eliminating deductions and loopholes, he didn't say which popular deductions he'd put on the chopping block. With federal government revenue at a 60-year low and spending at a 65-year high as percentages of the gross domestic product, it will take both significant spending cuts and tax increases to put the nation on firm financial ground.

But instead of specifics, Obama promised to deliver a bipartisan plan by the end of June. A bit of pragmatic bipartisanship would be a good thing in the wrenching fight ahead over the size and role of the federal government. But these issues aren't new. This fight has been brewing since deficits reappeared in 2002. And Republicans have been very clear about how they would approach the problem.

It's disappointing that the best Obama could do yesterday was to articulate principles of community and shared sacrifice, however important, while promising a plan later. Letting Congress go first has been his style on other issues, for instance, health care reform and the recent round of spending cuts. But the stakes are much higher this time.

This debate isn't just about spending and taxes. It's fundamentally about the kind of country we'll be in the years to come. Sketching out inspiring principles isn't enough. The nation needs a plan.