There seems to be surprisingly little here in the past day on the continuing battle on the Potomac, so I thought I would throw this out there.

From Obama's press conference:

Now, what that would require would be some shared sacrifice and a balanced approach that says we’re going to make significant cuts in domestic spending.  And I have already said I am willing to take down domestic spending to the lowest percentage of our overall economy since Dwight Eisenhower.

It also requires cuts in defense spending, and I’ve said that in addition to the $400 billion that we’ve already cut from defense spending, we’re willing to look for hundreds of billions more.

It would require us taking on health care spending.  And that includes looking at Medicare and finding ways that we can stabilize the system so that it is available not just for this generation but for future generations.

And it would require revenues.  It would require, even as we’re asking the person who needs a student loan or the senior citizen or people — veterans who are trying to get by on a disability check — even as we’re trying to make sure that all those programs are affordable, we’re also saying to folks like myself that can afford it that we are able and willing to do a little bit more; that millionaires and billionaires can afford to do a little bit more; that we can close corporate loopholes so that oil companies aren’t getting unnecessary tax breaks or that corporate jet owners aren’t getting unnecessary tax breaks.

If we take that approach, then I am confident that we can not only impress the financial markets, but more importantly, we can actually impress the American people that this town can actually get something done once in a while.

Now I know there were many on the Left (and such an assertion is an assumption on my part) that as soon as Obama used the phrase "shared sacrifice," they tuned out whatever he said after that.  And if they didn't they sure as heck did when he included Medicare as part of the discussion.

In response to this I turn to Clarence B. Jones:

Some Progressives in the Democratic Party need to take a refresher course in elementary arithmetic and remember the sage advice of former Senator Patrick Moynihan: "Everyone is entitled to their opinion; but, they are not entitled to their own set of facts." Reality must be faced: No meaningful deficit reduction over the next decade can occur without significant changes in the entitlement programs of Medicare and Medicaid. Such changes are essential for President Obama's proposal for a balanced package of shared sacrifice to be fiscally and politically credible.

If this was the only national budget component whose funding was being considered as the basis for balancing the budget, then push back by Progressives that Obama is seeking to" balance the budget on the backs of senior citizens" would have some merit. But it is not. Shared sacrifice means cuts in defense and winding down the war in Afghanistan with its daily drain of valuable dollars we could otherwise apply to improving our education and investing in energy technology to end our dependence on Saudi oil.

There are those who he say the People have sacrificed enough.  Just make the mega-corporation and the uberwealthy elites make the sacrifice.  Even if this was a possible successful strategy it (1) has no realistic path to reality in the current political landscape and (2) would address only short-term problems.

After a lot of thought (for that is worth), I am with Obama that what we need to do at this point, aside from accepting the need to engage in sincere compromise, is to address both the short-term and long-term issues facing the country.  Part of the long-term is addressing the "collective understanding" of how we approach our budgetary priorities, how we view the role of government in the economy, and consequently how we view revenue and taxes.  We can't keep having this battle year after year, with the voters throwing this party out this year and that party out that year. 

Shared sacrifice means restoring some sanity to how our government operates and the relationship between the citizen voters and their representatives.

Jones wrote in another blog

Wall Street and the auto industry bailout, healthcare reform, Iraq and Afghanistan, the "birthers," the Tea Party, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, immigration, 9.1% (16% real) unemployment, "shellacking" 2010 Midterm Congressional elections, civil unions, same-sex marriage, al Qaeda, bin Laden, renewal of the Patriot Act, continued rising tide of home foreclosures, national debt and budget deficit, August 2, 2011 deadline for raising national debt limit, he is not "one of us," not a Christian, but an "in-the-closet" Muslim, "he has a European state of mind," the 24/7 blogosphere of criticism, and a respected TV commentator calling him, a "dick," etc, etc. Need I say more?

So, Barack Hussein Obama, you wanted to be President of the United States?

When I see and listen to President Obama, sometimes I think of those memorable words by the gospel hymn composer, James Cleveland, "Nobody told me the road would be easy. But, Lord, don't believe you brought me this far, just to leave me."

History will record not only that Obama was the first African-American to be elected president of the United States, but that he was also president during a time when our nation was confronted with issues and problems of historic, if not unimaginable, magnitude.

Neither Jones nor I believe Obama has gotten it completely right all the time.  Jones ends that same blog this way:

In a speech in Iowa in last week, President Obama spoke about his desire to have more manufacturing in the U.S. Specifically, he mentioned wind turbine components as one of the things that should be made more in the U.S.

GE Energy, a part of GE, whose chairman and CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, is head of the president's Council On Jobs and Competitiveness and Economic Recovery Advisory Board, buys most of their drive systems from offshore: mainly Europe (Moventas of Finland and others) and China-based (Nanjing Gear Company) suppliers. Hold on; something doesn't compute here.

If Jeffrey Immelt and President Obama are committed to creating U.S. jobs, why can't they buy from a domestic company? Such a company, in turn could buy from American steel companies, creating thousands of U.S. jobs! This seems more in line with the president's domestic manufacturing agenda than having GE Energy continue to import gear boxes made with European and Chinese steel. Additionally, it would save GE Energy significant freight cost and reduce their carbon footprint of shipping these heavy components from around the world to the U.S.

Hey, but what do I know? I just may be another one of those persons the White House describes as part of their "complaining base of supporters."

But in the end, if we are all digging in our ideological heels (regardless of how much that ideology is inspired by real suffering), unwilling to put aside that there are some injustices ignored and some unfairness allowed, we are not going to move down the road to a place where we consistently address more and more injustices and unfairnness.  In other words, we need to have a little shared sacrifices for the common good in the long run.