He seems to be getting the message:
Now what [the Republicans will] also say is, "We're going to control spending." But of course, when you say you're going to borrow $700 billion to give an average $100,000-a-year tax break to people making a million dollars a year, or more, and you're not going to pay for it; when Mitch McConnell's overall tax package that he just announced recently was priced at about $4 trillion; when you, as a caucus, reject a bipartisan idea for a fiscal commission that originated from Judd Gregg, Republican budget chair, and Kent Conrad, Democratic budget chair, so that I had to end up putting the thing together administratively because we couldn't get any support you don't get a sense that they're actually serious on the deficit side.
As the Dish has argued consistently, Obama needs to focus the entire fall campaign on how the GOP will explode the debt and potentially force American into default. He needs a major stump speech on fiscal responsibility. That should be his core message this fall. He can cite the last few decades, embrace Clinton's record, and excoriate the second Bush's. He should praise the first president Bush - and he should move aggressively to the fiscal right of the GOP. That's how to appeal to the minority of tea-partiers who are genuinely and rightly concerned about the debt.
And if he doesn't run ads showing John Boehner's staggering statement,
Let's not talk about potential solutions
for cutting the debt, he's crazy. The GOP have just given him a sword. Use it. Deploy conservative statements and editorials bemoaning the fiscal recklessness of the "Pledge To America." Unmask their cynicism. Exploit the tea-party's suspicion of these tanned fiscal frauds.
More, Mr President. More loudly. More consistently. Promise a long-term balanced budget in your next two years. And add passion. Remind people what's at stake. Especially use this argument to rally younger voters, who will have to foot the bill the Bush-Boehner Republicans have handed to them.