Who cares? It's politics pure and simple ...

Critical Differences Belie Hopes for a Grand Bargain

By RICHARD W. STEVENSON, NYT

WASHINGTON – Even as President Obama lashes out at Republicans over the automatic spending cuts that take effect next week, he is simultaneously sending them a strikingly different message: he is still interested in a big deficit-reduction deal and as evidence of his good faith has left on the table proposed Medicare and Social Security cuts that liberals hate.

With neither side making much effort to avert the across-the-board reductions in military and domestic programs that kick in next Friday, signals from the White House about a much more ambitious budget package might seem to be somewhere between delusional and beside the point – not to mention politically self-serving. On Capitol Hill, Republicans say Mr. Obama has actually backtracked from where he was 18 months ago on reining in the entitlement programs and has shown no willingness to do anything really hard to get the nation’s long-term debt problems under control.

But administration officials say that some kind of opportunity is likely to present itself this year to engage Congressional Republicans on a comprehensive plan. In addition to rebutting Republican claims that he has no plan of his own, Mr. Obama wants to make clear to Republicans, aides said, that even after the failure of successive negotiations he remains willing to make difficult concessions.

That is especially true, they said, when it comes to entitlement programs, the focus of the sharpest ideological clashes between the two parties and the biggest contributors to the long-term budget imbalances.

(More here.)