Peter, I do think that statist individualism is Obama’s bottom line, but no entitlement reform = much higher taxes + more centralized direction of health care resources. There was also an impled argument for greater discretionary spending and greater subsidies for green energy companies in there. It sounds defensive because he wants it to sound defensive but it is an implied argument for much higher taxes and much more direct government direction of the economy than we have now. Whether he or his successors get that… It was tough enough raising the rates on high earners

On the other hand, I would just note that, in a crisis, it is easier to increase taxes and make centralized cuts to Medicare than to phase-in the kind of reforms that Ryan might want.

This makes no sense at all in the context of other conservative arguments. Medicare and Social Security are constantly criticized as “bankrupt” and imposing great debts on future young people in order to support an aging population.

So when Obama cuts Medicare to fund a broader health care program, it’s robbing old people to support the young, but when Paul Ryan’s budget cuts Social Security, it’s to keep young people from having to support the old.

You realize how completely incoherent that line of argument is, right?

Civility to socialists in my book means always using the qualifier “democratic.” Obama was a member of the DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America. It’s wrong for conservatives to immediately peg that stance as Stalin/Mao-bound. Once upon a time democratic socialists helped us fight Hitler, and helped us keep, indeed pressured us to keep, W. Europe out of Stalin’s hands.

And Peter, that’s a great comment. Right now there’s no democratic socialist policy promising enough to really spark Obama’s radical embers…so he’s defensive and de facto all about personal liberation and personal security. He adds the rhetorical fire to keep the young, many of whom are “minorities,” from noticing how they’re getting robbed by older (often white) Americans, and to keep the just dogged-and-dumb liberals out there motivated.

But if we get in a crisis/opportunity situation where a major democratic socialist economic policy initiative does seem promising for a time…Obama will fire up again.

Indeed, it seems to be gunning for a means tested system which will undermine the original everybody pays in everybody draws out, cosemetic egalitarianism that was a hallmark of social security and Medicare.