This morning on CNN’s State of the Union, senior Obama adviser David Axelrod scoffed at the conventional wisdom that, chastened by recent Republican gains in Congress, President Obama is “tacking back to the center.” According to Axelrod, the president never left. In his post-partisan way, Obama remains “who he has always been.”

Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D., N.Y.) and former governor Howard Dean (D., Vt.) told CBS’s Bob Schieffer their fear of the tax-cut compromise between Republicans and the White House. Dean poured scorn on this “terrible” bill, which promises to explode the deficit, although he repudiated the notion of a primary challenger to President Obama. Congressman Nadler repeatedly denounced as “blackmail” the insistence by “a bunch of gangsters” (read: Republicans) that tax rates be extended across the board. This Republican plan, and the White House indulgence of it, Nadler speculated, might well lead to the extension of current tax rates beyond 2012.

On Fox News Sunday, incoming Budget Committee chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) was in fine form squaring off against Rep. Chris Van Hollen, (D., Md.), the incoming ranking member. Congressman Ryan gave a lukewarm review of the tax-cut deal, and refused to credit the argument that it constitutes a second stimulus. He made the case that the agreement will merely serve to prevent the economy from contracting further.

Highlight: Around the 11:20 mark, Ryan promises to “come out of the gates” in the next session with “spending cuts, spending controls, [and] reforms to the structure of spending.” The current structure is groaning under the weight of unfunded liabilities in Medicare and Social Security to the tune of $70 trillion. In addition to structural reforms in spending, Ryan proposed to reform the revenue side of the system, seeking “broader-based, lower tax rates for economic growth.”