http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/president-barack-obama-budget-2015-114745.htmlObama veers left
His budget rollout has already hit some turbulence.
By Ben White
1/30/15 5:30 AM EST
As he prepares to deliver his budget on Monday, President Barack Obama is lurching to the left.
The president has already proposed — and had to drop — a plan to tax college savings accounts. He’s writing for The Huffington Post. He declared war on “mindless austerity” while pledging fresh tax hikes on banks and the rich to pay for free community college and other goodies. Remember those budget caps put in place in 2011? Obama wants to blast right through them.
It’s a progressive’s dream version of Obama, untethered from earlier centrist leanings and flirtations with “grand bargains” with Republicans on entitlement reform. But the approach also carries significant risks, analysts and some Democrats say.
Obama could wind up alienating moderate swing voters who still tend to worry about debt and deficits, generally oppose higher taxes and fear the economy the president is now celebrating is not really all that great. And the president could wind up bequeathing to nominee-in-waiting Hillary Clinton a Democratic Party that is oriented well to the left of her traditional comfort zone, making an eventual general election campaign more challenging.
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