Back Channels: Now's the time for adult conversation on budget

Last month, after Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) released his plan to balance the budget, reform the tax code, and put Medicare on the path to solvency, he was invited to the White House.

President Obama, whose own first stab at a 2012 budget had completely overlooked the nation's spending and deficit problems, appeared ready to present a new and improved version. After all, the president himself had called for an "adult conversation" on these issues.

Ryan graciously accepted and was seated up front, just a few feet from the presidential lectern.

And then Obama tore into Ryan and his "Path to Prosperity" plan: It would cause "50 million Americans . . . to lose their health insurance"; it would replace Medicare and leave "seniors at the mercy of the insurance industry"; "poor children," "children with autism," and "kids with disabilities" would have to "fend for themselves."

The blindsided Ryan later called the speech "excessively partisan, dramatically inaccurate, and hopelessly inadequate to address our fiscal crisis."

The nonpartisan Factcheck.org agreed in part, saying the "50 million" line was based on "speculation and assumptions." And the hyperbole about seniors and children were both termed an "exaggeration."

"When the president is ready to get serious about confronting this challenge," Ryan said last month, "we'll be here."

So far, though, neither the White House nor most congressional Democrats have shown themselves ready to leave the kids' table. There's still time, but the moment for action is passing.

That was the message Sen. Pat Toomey delivered last week, both at a Federalist Society lunch in Philadelphia and at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.

Washington had already missed two chances this year to get serious about deficits and spending, Toomey told both gatherings: the 2011 continuing resolution and the 2012 budget.

That resolution produced some baby steps on spending cuts but with even those called "draconian" by Democrats, it seems unlikely they'll follow through on the $4 trillion in savings over 10 years advocated by the president's own fiscal commission.