In his carefully worded deficit speech, the president assured Democrats that his inner liberal is alive and well—slamming Paul Ryan's budget proposal as "deeply pessimistic," and vowing that the radical plan is "not going to happen as long as I'm president." Eleanor Clift on why Obama's up to the task at hand. 
 
 Obama is a man who rations his emotions, but watching his speech today, and listening to the direction of his reforms, his inner liberal is alive and well. He would direct less money to the top 1 percent and hold the line for people who have no clout on Capitol Hill. He can't deliver everything liberals want, but this fight is as much about leadership as it is about the numbers. After a slow start, Obama is suited up and ready for the battle. "In a country that prizes both our individual freedoms and obligations to each other, this is one of the most important debates we have," he said, recalling the historic tension over the role of government that goes back to the Founding Fathers. 
 
 The president said his budget would cut $4 trillion from the deficit over twelve years, end tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, and preserve the federal guarantee for Medicare and Medicaid. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP Photo) 
 
 As the debate gets under way, Obama reminded us again of his rhetorical gifts as he ended his speech with what is essentially a reprise of his campaign theme that America can come together, and which remains the blueprint for his re-election. Speaking soberly and with conviction, he sounded like he has had a Come-to-Jesus moment in assessing the budget. Pointing out that interest alone could rise to $1 trillion by the end of this decade, he said, "Even our national security will be paid for by borrowed money." He invoked that well-worn Washington phrase, that everything must be put on the table, including Medicare, Medicaid, and defense spending, which together account for two-thirds of spending. 
 
 After commending Republican Paul Ryan for coming forward with a plan, he deftly skewered it as "deeply pessimistic" that if enacted would lead to "a fundamentally different America," one that will leave some 50 million Americans to fend for themselves: while handing a trillion dollars in new tax breaks to the wealthy. "That's not right, and that's not going to happen as long as I'm president," he declared. His plan would cut $4 trillion from the deficit over 12 years, end tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, and preserve the federal guarantee for Medicare and Medicaid, while expanding cost restraints already in place in the health care reform legislation—"a scalpel not a machete," as Obama put it. 
 
 Speaking soberly and with conviction, Obama sounded like he has had a Come-to-Jesus moment in assessing the budget. 
 
 The central issue of our day should be jobs, but Republican messaging and the arrival of the Tea Party has made it the country's rising debt. Obama enters the debate at an optimal moment when Republicans have put down markers that many Americans find objectionable—from trying to defund Planned Parenthood to privatizing Medicare. A lot of Democrats would like Obama to just say no, but that's not Obama's inclination. There is a serious challenge in getting the budget under control. It's not a crisis, but it is a partisan confrontation about the role of government, and Obama showed in his speech today that he is ready to seize the moment on behalf of his party's ideals and constituents. 
 
 Eleanor Clift is a contributing editor for Newsweek. Follow her on Twitter. 
 
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 For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com. ||||| President Barack Obama on Wednesday night tacked to the right with appeals for tax cuts for small business and new investments in off-shore oil drilling and nuclear power. He tacked to the left with renewed vows to let gays serve in the military and to get U.S. troops out of Iraq. 
 
 He sounded at times like a Bill Clinton-style centrist, at others like a bank-bashing populist. He taunted Republicans, and also presented himself as a lonely tribune of cooperation and bipartisan civility in Washington. 
 
 In a favorable light, his State of the Union speech may have revealed the mind of a leader who has never cared much about traditional ideological categories and is determined to create his own results-oriented composite of ideas from across the spectrum. 
 
 Less charitably, the address could be interpreted as the work of a president who is desperately improvising by touching every political erogenous zone he and his advisers can think of. 
 
 Under either judgment, however, it was inescapable that his 69-minute speech — for all the rush of words and policy ideas — was a document of downsized ambitions for a downsized moment in his presidency. 
 
 It was presented to the Congress and a national audience with all of Obama’s usual fluency and brio. There were flashes of wit, as when he noted ruefully that “by now, it should be fairly obvious that I didn't take on health care because it was good politics.” 
 
 And there were flashes of defiance, with Obama delivering what the White House clearly intended to be the headline quote: “We don’t quit; I don’t quit.” 
 
 But there was no mistaking throughout this box-checking, loosely bundled speech how different the political context in the winter of 2010 is from the winter of 2009. 
 
 Obama came into office promising to shatter expectations of what was possible in Washington. The talk then was of a presidential “big bang” — health care, global warming, and financial reform legislation all in one year — and chief of staff Rahm Emanuel boasted that his motto was to “never let a serious crisis go to waste.” 
 
 With the big-bang strategy officially a failure, Obama’s speech revealed in real-time a president groping for a new and more effective one. The speech was woven with frequent acknowledgements that the laws of political gravity applied to him after all. 
 
 The first and most pressing legislative goals he identified were a comparatively small jobs bill that has passed the House but is languishing in the Senate, and a Bill Clinton-style menu of tax incentives for business. 
 
 Health care, the consuming issue of 2009 and the one on which Obama aides insisted they should be judged, did not show up until more than halfway through. ||||| Story highlights President Obama takes on Republican foes, vowing to take matters into his own hands 
 
 Obama reprises campaign themes of equal opportunity for all 
 
 The president seeks to frame the political debate with major budget, debt issues looming 
 
 An Obama goal is to put new pressure on Republicans to work with Democrats 
 
 President Barack Obama vowed Wednesday to focus his energy for the rest of his presidency on the core tenet of his election victories -- equal opportunity for all Americans -- starting with campaign-style speeches on the economy that appeared to launch this year's budget battle with Republicans. 
 
 Confronting the deep partisan divide over federal spending, tax reform and raising the debt ceiling later this year, Obama told a large crowd at the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg that reversing a growing inequality between haves and have-nots should be the top priority of Congress. 
 
 He chastised Congress for inaction and vowed to take matters into his own hands during the remaining 1,276 days he has in office. 
 
 "Where I can act on my own, I'm going to. I'm not going to wait for Congress," he said in the second of two speeches that kicked off a series of economic-themed addresses across the country. 
 
 It was a sentiment he expressed earlier in the day during a speech to hundreds at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. 
 
 "This growing inequality isn't just morally wrong; it's bad economics," Obama said. 
 
 During the speech at Knox College, he blended populist imagery from his campaign stump speech last year with the criticism of conservative Republicans who, according to the president, only stood for repealing his signature 2010 health care reform law and slashing federal spending in an effort to shrink government. 
 
 "Repealing Obamacare and cutting spending is not an economic plan. It's not," Obama said, challenging the political right to work with him on budget and tax polices that promote economic fairness for all, especially the middle class and people aspiring to join it. 
 
 His voice rising, Obama declared that "the one thing I care about is how to use every minute of the remaining 1,276 days of my term to make this country work for working Americans again." 
 
 As the audience stood to applaud and cheer, he added: "That's all I care about. I don't have another election." 
 
 Earlier Wednesday, White House spokesman Jay Carney acknowledged to CNN that a goal of Obama's speeches was to ratchet up pressure on Republicans to work with Democrats and the president, noting that "in the end, members of Congress respond to their constituents." 
 
 Republicans called Obama's speeches a retread strategy that lacked fresh ideas to further bolster an economy that everyone agrees should be growing faster. 
 
 "We've heard most of it before," GOP Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama told CNN, adding that Obama's economic policies had failed. 
 
 "He's a good politician," Shelby said of Obama, noting that the president was telling people what they wanted to hear. "But he's not doing what he needs to do to create good jobs." 
 
 Despite slow but steady growth over the past four years, polls show many Americans are still concerned about unemployment and the economy overall even though indicators show an improving recovery and Wall Street is again in record territory. 
 
 Two new surveys on Wednesday indicated less than half of Americans approve of the president's handling of the economy. Both polls, by NBC News/Wall Street Journal and ABC News/Washington Post, found more respondents disapprove of how Obama has dealt with the economy, which remained the top issue for the public. 
 
 The first six months of Obama's second term have been dominated by issues like gun violence and immigration reform, with legislation on both currently mired in partisan wrangling, as well as controversies such as Internal Revenue Service targeting of groups seeking tax-exempt status. 
 
 Reframing political debate 
 
 His speeches Wednesday sought to reframe the political debate as the government approaches the end of its fiscal year on September 30 and a potential shutdown if Congress fails to overcome the gridlock that has become its trademark. 
 
 Knox College is where Obama delivered his first major economic address of his national political career eight years ago, and he used the setting to emphasize progress made since then in overcoming the recession his administration inherited to launch a slow but steady economic recovery. 
 
 At the same time, Obama said the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century demanded new thinking and policies to capitalize on America's potential and end the pattern of worsening inequality from previous decades. 
 
 He called for Washington to focus on "rebuilding our manufacturing base, educating our workforce, upgrading our transportation systems, upgrading our information networks" instead of what he labeled "an endless parade of distractions, political posturing and phony scandals." 
 
 Obama was particularly tough on conservative House Republicans, whom he blamed for blocking progress on issues such as immigration reform agreed to by their GOP colleagues in the Senate. 
 
 He said he would work with anyone with good ideas while using executive authority and calling on on business leaders, philanthropists, labor leaders -- "anybody who can help" -- to push for economic changes promoting equal opportunity. 
 
 "I will not allow gridlock or inaction or willful indifference to get in our way," Obama said. 
 
 Later in the day, Obama headed to the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg for another address expected to focus on education. 
 
 Looming budget battle 
 
 Regardless of the political focus of recent months, the national debate was certain to focus on the federal budget this summer and fall. 
 
 Pitched political battles over spending and taxes have dominated Obama's presidency, and Republican leaders spurred on by conservative House Republicans facing congressional elections next year are threatening hardline negotiating tactics over the budget and affiliated issues of tax reform and forced spending cuts known as sequestration that took effect this year. 
 
 Both the Republican-majority House and Democratic-majority Senate have passed spending proposals for fiscal year 2014, but the measures bear little resemblance to each other in terms of priorities. 
 
 Any attempt to reconcile differences through negotiation faces complications from related issues such as whether the sweeping government spending cuts that took effect in March and hit the military and discretionary accounts hard should continue unchanged. 
 
 Another potential landmine is the opposition by conservative Republicans, including some GOP leaders in Congress, to funding the implementation of the health care reform law pushed through by Democrats with Obama's backing in 2010. 
 
 Further complicating the debate is the certain need for Congress to authorize an increase in the government's borrowing limit, or debt ceiling, sometime this fall. 
 
 'The Boehner rule' 
 
 House Speaker John Boehner has made clear that any rise in the debt ceiling would require an equal cut in government spending to get GOP support, a demand known as the Boehner rule as set by the Ohio Republican. 
 
 The White House has said it will not negotiate on the debt ceiling, and some congressional Republicans balk at linking it to specific demands, such as cuts in funds for implementing health care reform, but insist that more must be done to reduce deficits and debt. 
 
 "I think holding the debt limit a hostage to any specific thing is probably not the best negotiating place," GOP Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri told MSNBC. "Where we ought to be now is, we need more spending cuts." 
 
 Blunt specifically called for reforms to popular entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security to reduce their costs "so they last." 
 
 However, Democrats and Republicans remain far apart on entitlements, long a target of conservatives seeking to shrink government, especially programs that they say lead to federal dependence. 
 
 Democrats argue the government pension program and health care for the elderly and poor are part of a vital social contract that ensures the well-being of vulnerable citizens. 
 
 Obama said Wednesday that Democrats must "question old assumptions" and "be willing to redesign or get rid of programs that don't work as well as they should." 
 
 He has come under fire from some liberals for already proposing a change in how the annual cost-of-living index for federal benefits gets calculated as part of a broad but so far unreachable deficit reduction deal with Republicans. ||||| President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech will be less a presidential olive branch than a congressional cattle prod. 
 
 Emboldened by electoral victory and convinced the GOP is unwilling to cut deals, Obama plans to use his big prime-time address Tuesday night to issue another broad challenge at a Republican Party he regards as vulnerable and divided, Democrats close to Obama say. 
 
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 reset Glenn Thrush on a more progressive second Obama term TOP 5: What to watch for 
 
 He’ll pay lip service to bipartisanship, but don’t expect anything like the call for peaceful collaboration that defined his first address to a joint session of Congress in 2009, they say. 
 
 (Full coverage: State of the Union 2013) 
 
 That strategy has its dangers: If Americans perceive Obama as too partisan, he’ll lose a serious share of his personal popularity. Yet he needs to burn political capital — and keep the GOP on the defensive — to force the opposition into accepting more taxes and fewer budget cuts as part of a deal to avert the $1.2 trillion-dollar sequester cuts looming on March 1. 
 
 When POLITICO asked how Obama is approaching the speech compared with his previous State of the Union addresses, a person close to the process of drafting the speech replied with a 2,500-year-old quote from Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu: 
 
 “Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across.” 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: Which Obama will speak on climate?) 
 
 The anodyne, stage-managed West Wing leaks have the State of the Union speech focusing on “jobs creation,” poll-tested paeans to the “middle class” and a new slate of infrastructure projects that will have a tough time passing Congress. Privately, administration officials see it as an extension of Obama’s unabashedly provocative and progressive Jan. 21 inaugural address, their latest attempt to leverage favorable deals on the sequester and the debt ceiling comparable to the watershed deal Obama secured on increasing taxes on the wealthy. 
 
 Obama now hopes to use his post-election popularity to force new tax increases and fewer budget cuts on Republicans as part of any deal to avert a $1.2 trillion menu of automatic cuts increasingly likely to kick in on March 1. 
 
 (PHOTOS: 10 famous lines from SOTU history) 
 
 “There are a surprising number of Republicans who seem to think that elections don’t matter, who are ready to block widely popular agenda items that the American people voted for in November,” former Obama campaign press secretary Ben LaBolt said, underscoring the elections-have-consequences attitude of the president’s brain trust. 
 
 “Change isn’t going to happen behind closed doors — it’ll require continued use of the bully pulpit and the reengagement of the millions of Americans who volunteered for the campaign,” he added. 
 
 Obama’s campaign-style efforts on health care and the 2011 jobs bill were met with initial buzz, indifferent follow-through and ambiguous results. With House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) saying he won’t even sit down with Obama to talk about the big issues now, the president has hit the road again, this time with the force of his 2012 campaign organization behind him, barnstorming for his gun control measures, immigration reform and economic fairness. 
 
 At a retreat for Democratic House members last week, he sounded more like the 2012 presidential candidate than the 2009 Obama, who pined publicly for bipartisanship. 
 
 “My governing philosophy and my interest in public service grows out of how we make that union more perfect for more people day in, day out. And that starts with an economy that works for everybody,” he told the group, using language refined through relentless road tests and focus groups during the election campaign. ||||| President Obama could have worn a cape. Speaking to reporters about a deal to extend the Bush tax cuts and unemployment insurance, he offered a dire narrative of what might have been. Ideologues in both parties were locked in a dangerous game with no concern for the welfare of the American people. "Without a willingness to give on both sides, there's no reason to believe that this stalemate won't continue into next year," he said. A stalemate would mean a tax increase for everyone, and tax cuts for the hardest-hit would expire, along with unemployment benefits. 
 
 In the nick of time a hero arrived to save the parties from themselves. Who was that quick-thinking citizen? Why, it was Man of Reason! "I know there's some people in my own party and in the other party who would rather prolong this battle, even if we can't reach a compromise. But I'm not willing to let working families across this country become collateral damage for political warfare here in Washington." 
 
 Obama ran in 2008 as a man who would bring both parties together. Monday night he presented himself as a pragmatic leader who had done just that. The difference was that two years ago it sounded like a process where everyone locked arms. This time it was more of a headlock, and any collateral damage is likely to be among the president's own liberal base. 
 
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 Obama presented himself as a warrior for agreement. He was also a lecturer. "The American people didn't send us here to wage symbolic battles or win symbolic victories," he said. "I want everybody to remember over the course of the coming days, both Democrats and Republicans, that these are not abstract fights for families that are impacted. ... We cannot play politics at a time when the American people are looking for us to solve problems." 
 
 The White House holiday party for its liberal friends might be awkward (or empty). Liberals were already upset with the president when it looked like he was going to cave on his previous opposition to extending tax cuts. They are not likely to enjoy this lecture about the need for putting the middle class ahead of playing politics. 
 
 On the substance, there are parts of the $900 billion deal that liberals should find attractive: a reduction in the payroll tax, extension of unemployment benefits for 13 months, and extension of the Earned Income Tax Credit. These programs will pump hundreds of billions of stimulus into the economy over the next two years, which many liberals want. A senior White House aide promised it would create "a very significant positive impact on job growth and unemployment." Another administration official pointed out that these achievements were greater than any of their allies had expected would come out of the deal: "After we all realized some compromise was going to happen, the agreement we got is actually damn good." 
 
 The lesson from the president is one White House aides have been making one way or another since last month's election: The world is different. The things we want will come with a price determined by the GOP. The questions for liberals are a) whether they buy that formulation and b) whether they think the president overpaid. Not only did Republicans win on extension of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans; they also won a new lower rate of 35 percent for the estate tax and a higher exemption of $5 million for it. Democrats in the House and Senate made it clear Monday night that they had not yet signed on to the president's deal. 
 
 The president said the tax cuts for the wealthy would not last beyond the two-year extension, because after the coming deficit debate, Americans would see how the country just can't afford them. He said he would "engage in a conversation" about the choices to help them get to this position. But he's been engaged in that conversation about these tax cuts for months. Americans already agreed with him. Only 26 percent favor the GOP view in a recent CBS poll. It was the need to get a deal when faced with an immovable opposition (including some in his own party) that caused Obama to give in on his tax cut position. That kind of dynamic isn't going to change in the next year, when the GOP will have more control. 
 
 Washington has been flooded with deficit reduction plans of late. They have different ideological shapes, but most require everyone to sacrifice something they want. That wasn't how this deal came together. Both sides agreed to give each other largely what they wanted. It is financed entirely by adding to the national debt. (Whee!) 
 
 As the president spoke, he sounded like he did when announcing his Afghanistan policy: We have to escalate this war in order to end it. The majority of economists seem to agree that this kind of stimulus is necessary now before we buckle in for that grueling conversation about austerity. This may be the last agree-and-spend deal of its kind. Maybe the next grand bargains will be measured in terms of dollars saved. Of course, that will depend on political courage, which will in turn depend on what voters think. Right now the American families President Obama talked about are grateful, but they might also learn a lesson that will make things harder for him: Even in the Age of Austerity, there's always room for pie. 
 
 
 
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– A Band-Aid to heal a divided America, it was not: Liberals and conservatives alike are calling President Obama's fiery inaugural speech today a call to arms for liberal values in stark opposition to his opponents. A sample: "I was expecting an anodyne tone-poem about healing national wounds, surmounting partisanship, and so on," writes James Fallows at The Atlantic. To the contrary, "it's almost as if he has won re-election and knows he will never have to run again and hears the clock ticking on his last chance to say what he cares about." "Obama’s rhetoric matches what seems to be a marked change in his approach to legislation—and Congressional Republicans—since he won re-election last fall," writes Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post. "On both the fiscal cliff and debt ceiling showdowns, Obama outlined his position and stuck to it. ... Both times, Republicans blinked." Calling it "the most liberal speech he has delivered as president," Glenn Thrush at Politico writes: "In a challenge to the GOP, Obama mentioned the country’s $16.4 trillion debt load once and then, only to announce his stalwart opposition to slashing Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security." On Fox News, Charles Krauthammer called it "Obama unbound" and "the end of Reaganism," adding, "This speech was a declaration the era of big government is back." But Andrew Sullivan somehow found a middle ground: "If you have long believed, as I have, that this man could easily become the liberal Reagan by the end of his second term ... then this speech will not have surprised you," he writes at the Daily Beast. Obama acknowledged "free enterprise, risk, [and] individualism," but emphasized that "we have to act collectively as well." Read the entire speech here.