President Obama's speech on the deficit strikes the right tone

That's how I'd characterize today's speech by the President. It was an excellent framing of the issue at hand. The President was clear to acknowledge the need for some reforms, but more importantly stressed that America can not make such sacrifices at the expense of its own identity. In other words, yeah we could cut the deficit on the backs of the elderly and poor like the Republicans propose, but that's not who we are. Simple and straight to the point. Loved it.

The President made it very clear that he would not sacrifice investments in our nation's future. He pledged continued investments in science, infrastructure and education. And, despite fears to the contrary, the President did not accept Republican talking points by any means when it came to matters of Social Security and Medicare. This was not an austerity speech.

There are some details that will obviously have to be worked out, but President Obama was strong in his stance that we cannot forsake the social contract we have with our elderly and the poor.

As for his approach, the President basically said we've got to tackle the major challenges posed by matters such as Defense, Medicare and Social Security. Of those three, President Obama pretty much guaranteed large cuts in the Defense budget, and promised to address health care costs by building upon the base that was already established under the Affordable Care Act that was passed last year. I don't recall hearing the President propose any unsettling changes to Social Security at this moment either.

The President did a superb job of outlining just how we got into our current predicament:


Even more, the President reinserted the issue of tax-cuts for the wealthy and gave a seriously strong rebuke of the plan recently unveiled by Rep. Paul Ryan.

All in all, the President did the damn thing on this deficit reduction speech. Of course, seeing as how I found it to be incredibly logical and fair-minded, I'm sure that pundits from both the Left and Right are ready to call the President everything but a child of God. I hope I'm wrong.

Here's to hoping we don't here the following:

Pundit on the Left - the President is a sellout who caved.

Pundit on the Right - the President is a socialist, Marxist in search of a redistribution of wealth.

Just remember, there's a reason they're called the fringe. Think for yourselves. . . Don't let them waste your time.