President Obama’s speech Wednesday on how to rein in the nation’s debt will be the first in a series of steps he will take in coming weeks to promote fiscal discipline, not just a one-time nod toward cutting spending, the White House said Tuesday.
Obama’s speech at George Washington University will respond to a Republican blueprint for tackling the soaring national debt by calling for a bipartisan effort to curb deficit spending and contain the growth of the debt.
He will insist on the need for a combination of cuts to defense spending, a reduction in Medicare and Medicaid costs, and increases in taxes on the rich.
But that won’t be the end of the efforts, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Tuesday.
“This is the beginning of a process by which he intends to engage this conversation and it’s an important issue and it goes beyond giving one speech,” Carney said. “The moment does not end with the speech.”
The White House would not say what else the president will do to continue the discussion after his speech. Obama is scheduled to brief congressional leaders on Wednesday morning, a few hours before his speech.
Obama’s speech will attempt to provide an alternative vision to that laid out in the plan proposed earlier this month by the House Budget Committee chairman, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.)
Ryan’s proposal would cut spending by $6 trillion over the next decade, in part by significant reductions to Medicare and Medicaid. Obama and other Democrats believe those cuts to entitlement programs for the elderly and poor would be too deep.
Carney said that Obama supports the efforts of the “Gang of Six,” a group of senators trying to implement the recommendations of the president’s deficit reduction commission.
But it was not clear whether Obama would invoke by name the Gang of Six or other efforts to rein the debt, or simply lay out his own broad vision for moving forward on deficit reduction.
Read more at The Washington Post.