President Obama Officially Off The Chain(ed CPI)

The NY Times is reporting that President Obama's budget has a pretty huge concession in it:  recalculating the rate of growth of social safety net benefits through the process of chained CPI.  Jackie Calmes at the Times calls it a "cutback" and she's right.

Besides the tax increases that most Republicans continue to oppose, Mr. Obama’s budget will propose a new inflation formula that would have the effect of reducing cost-of-living payments for Social Security benefits, though with financial protections for low-income and very old beneficiaries, administration officials said. The idea, known as chained C.P.I., has infuriated some Democrats and advocacy groups to Mr. Obama’s left, and they have already mobilized in opposition. 

As Mr. Obama has before, his budget documents will emphasize that he would support the cost-of-living change, as well as other reductions that Republicans have called for in the popular programs for older Americans, only if Republicans agree to additional taxes on the wealthy and infrastructure investments that the president called for in last year’s offer to Mr. Boehner. 

Mr. Obama will propose other spending and tax credit initiatives, including aid for states to make free prekindergarten education available nationwide — a priority outlined in his State of the Union address in February. He will propose to pay for it by raising federal taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products. 

“The president has made clear that he is willing to compromise and do tough things to reduce the deficits, but only in the context of a package like this one that has balance and includes revenues from the wealthiest Americans and that is designed to promote economic growth,” said a senior administration official, who, like others, declined to be identified confirming details about the coming budget. 

“That means,” the official added, “that the things like C.P.I. that Republican leaders have pushed hard for will only be accepted if Congressional Republicans are willing to do more on revenues.” 

It's a moot point in a sense.  Republicans will declare the entire plan DOA anyway, simply because Obama proposed it.  In another sense, it's a major concession as I said before:  retirees will get less money than they would have, meaning this budget is DOA among Dems as well.

So I'm not sure why President Obama is going this route, considering Republicans will reject the entire offer, and Democrats will not support it because of Chained CPI.  At most he'll get a couple dozen votes for it.

That leaves the budget as a negotiation tactic, but again, Republicans have yet to embrace anything that looks like a Grand Bargain.  They wont to annihilate Barack Obama, not negotiate.  

So at this point, either the President is wasting America's time with a budget that will never pass, or wasting his time with a negotiation tactic that will be ignored (and more likely, Republicans will simply say "Obama is the one cutting Medicare, we're protecting it!") and attack him.  

It's east to blame the President's advisers on this for giving lousy advice, but the reality is at this point even I have to admit that after four years of Republicans treating the President as a illegitimate disease who needs to be expunged from American history, if President Obama actually thinks the GOP gives a good goddamn about negotiation, he's crazy.