As expected, we got a lot of generalities and not a whole ‘lotta specifics.

• The first step in our approach is to keep annual domestic spending low by building on the savings that both parties agreed to last week … We’ll invest in medical research and clean energy technology. We’ll invest in new roads and airports and broadband access. We will invest in education and job training. We will do what we need to compete and we will win the future.

The plan agreed upon last week is still higher than 2008 spending levels .. and did he just call for more “investment?” That, of course, is the Democrat code word for “spending.” So in this marvelous paragraph Obama says we need to keep spending low by … spending! Amazing.

• The second step in our approach is to find additional savings in our defense budget.
• The third step in our approach is to further reduce health care spending in our budget. Here, the difference with the House Republican plan could not be clearer: their plan lowers the government’s health care bills by asking seniors and poor families to pay them instead. Our approach lowers the government’s health care bills by reducing the cost of health care itself. Already, the reforms we passed in the health care law will reduce our deficit by $1 trillion. My approach would build on these reforms.

Hot Air dispels this one right away: “[The Ryan plan] provides Medicare recipients with $15,000 vouchers and has them use it to buy private insurance. Anyone on Medicare knows that its recipients end up paying a significant portion of medical bills now under the current system. The voucher program would allow seniors to look for programs in a competitive environment that gets better provider coverage with lower co-pays than what is currently the experience in the existing single-payer system. Either way, seniors end up paying for their medical coverage through taxes and out-of-pocket expenses.”

• The fourth step in our approach is to reduce spending in the tax code – tax expenditures. In December, I agreed to extend the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans because it was the only way I could prevent a tax hike on middle-class Americans. But we cannot afford $1 trillion worth of tax cuts for every millionaire and billionaire in our society. And I refuse to renew them again.

“Millionaires and billionaires.” Don’t you get it folks? This is the type of language you use when you’re trying to stir up class warfare .. not the language you use when you’re trying to engage in a serious policy discussion.

• My budget calls for limiting itemized deductions for the wealthiest 2% of Americans – a reform that would reduce the deficit by $320 billion over ten years. But to reduce the deficit, I believe we should go further. That’s why I’m calling on Congress to reform our individual tax code so that it is fair and simple

Yeah .. and these high-achievers won’t change their economic behavior one bit as a result of your tax hikes, will they, Mr. Community Organizer?

• My plan includes a debt failsafe. If, by 2014, our debt is not projected to fall as a share of the economy – or if Congress has failed to act – my plan will require us to come together and make up the additional savings with more spending cuts and more spending reductions in the tax code. That should be an incentive for us to act boldly now, instead of kicking our problems further down the road.

Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute surmises that this "debt failsafe trigger” would mean automatically raise taxes if politicians spend too much. “If politicians in Washington spend too much and cause more red ink, which happens on a routine basis, Obama wants a provision that automatically would raise taxes on the American people.”