The complete text can be found here.
Jonathan Cohn:
1. That was a clear, unambiguous, morally grounded defense of the welfare state--as strong and stirring as I've seen from this president.
2. Obama made the case for more revenue, which is the biggest political challenge Democrats face when they talk about deficit reduction. And he sounded more determined than before to block extension of Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. That's promising.
3. My two biggest misgivings are on policy: Obama called for more taxes on the wealthy, not the middle class, and wants an imbalanced approach that favors spending reductions over revenue increases. This was my fear about hewing to the guidelines set by the Bowles-Simpson Commission, particularly if this merely the opening bid of a negotiation.
4. The new health care reforms sound very good upon initial inspection--and, particularly when added to cost controls already in the Affordable Care Act, this is far more serious than what Paul Ryan and the Republicans have in mind. And if Obama is more serious about controlling health care costs, then he's more serious about reducing deficits overall.
5. Did I mention how much I liked the rhetoric? At the level of broad principle, this was the speech I wanted to hear.
Jonathan Chait:
In his budget speech today, Obama attempted to square the circle in two ways. First, he nodded at the Bowles-Simpson approach without endorsing it explicitly or in detail. This turns it into an approach whose basic contours he can ultimately support, but not a negotiating position. And second, he beat Ryan and the Republicans to a bloody pulp.
Greg Sargent:
For some time now, a bunch of us have been wondering when — or whether — Obama would step up and make a strong case for an expansive vision of Democratic governance. With Republicans iniatiating what may be the most consequential argument over the proper role of government in decades — a debate over the legacy of the great liberal achievements of the 20th Century — we’ve all been wondering whether Obama would respond with a level of ambition and seriousness of purpose that he’s shown when taking on other big arguments.
By this standard — in rhetorical terms — it’s fair to say Obama delivered. Sure, the speech had flaws, trafficking a bit in the usual positioning between two allegedly equivalent extremes. And speeches are the easy part: Obama’s words jarred against recent actions, and what Obama actually does in the months to come will be what either ratifies today’s promises or renders them meaningless. But Obama did offer perhaps the most ambitious defense he may have ever attempted of American liberalism and of what it means to be a Democrat.
Even Andrew Sullivan:
I'm not sure how major an impact this midday speech will have - simply because it will be highly limited in its audience. But it was classic Obama - a center left approach to a center-right conviction: that the debt is unsustainable; that we all have to make sacrifices; that defense-cutting, reducing the cost of healthcare; and tax reform are integral to this possibility.
And it looks as if he will indeed use the debt ceiling moment to push some version of this through. I didn't get the sense from this speech that he was only planning to do this in his second term. And surely, after the cold shock of the Ryan plan, his less draconian vision for the vulnerable will be popular in the middle. The least persuasive part of the GOP proposal is its refusal to ask anything from the top one percent in this crisis. Obama saw this, and went for it.
