Another preemptive compromise from the White House

If you’re really into competing blueprints for the federal budget—and we both know you are—then it’s an exciting week. The president released his 2014 budget request today, and for the first time in many years there are White House, House and Senate budgets all on the table at the same time. There are also two other proposals, one from the House’s right wing and one from its left.

These great graphs from the Washington Post compare these five plans to one another and to current policy. Note than on the first metric, the ever-popular question of budget deficits, all five dip lower than current projections in just a couple years. The proposals are easy enough to map from right to left, but that doesn’t mean the ones on the left are as lefty in absolute terms as the ones on the right are righty. All five—even the plan from the House Progressive Caucus, irresponsible America haters though they may be—share the basic goal of lower deficits.

The newest proposal, Obama’s, achieves some of its deficit reduction by adopting a different formula for calculating inflation for certain programs. If that sounds harmless, it isn’t: it means Social Security benefit cuts for the elderly and higher income taxes for some middle-class earners. Obama’s budget also cuts Medicare by paying providers less and asking more of some seniors. Such entitlement reforms are popular in conservative circles.