That is the header in the LA Times.
In a speech Wednesday, the president is expected to call for higher taxes on wealthier Americans, as opposed to Republican plans to slash Medicare and Medicaid.
Reporting from Washington—
President Obama will call for shrinking the nation's long-term deficits by raising taxes on wealthier Americans and requiring them to pay more into Social Security, drawing a barbed contrast with a Republican plan to save money by deeply slashing Medicare, Medicaid and other domestic spending.
Obama will offer some spending cuts, including trims to the Pentagon's budget, but his speech Wednesday is likely to provide Americans with a vivid choice between higher taxes or fewer benefits, issues that will color the national debate straight through the 2012 election.
snip
Apart from showing voters he is committed to cutting the deficit — a popular position — Obama has another purpose in rolling out his plan this week. Aides said he was thinking ahead to a vote on lifting the nation's debt ceiling and wanted to win over wavering voters by meeting one of their priorities: deficit reduction.
snip
"We strongly disagree with the lack of balance in Congressman Ryan's approach," Carney said. "It simply is not appropriate and it would not be supported by the American people to have a fiscal plan that relies on dramatic restructuring, reform of the kind of programs that provide security and health security to seniors and to poor people and to disabled people, and at the same time gives enormous tax relief, tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans."
I know Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal is trying to paint President Obama as "just about to cave" to the Republicans with cutting Medicare and Medicaid, and allow Speaker Boehner to just move into the White House as de facto President, but... well...I'll bet Fox News has some opinions on this, too.