Howard Gleckman is very impressed with Rep. Steny Hoyer, the House Majority Leader, for giving a well-informed speech on the federal budget.

It is easy to say, “everything is on the table.’ It is not so easy for an elected official to explicitly describe what that means. Hoyer did. And his remarks won’t make him any friends within the Democratic base. Among his proposals: Trim future Medicare costs. Raise the Social Security retirement age. Adjust both programs to focus benefits on those who need them most, even if it means reducing benefits for wealthy retirees. Cut defense spending. Have a “serious discussion” about whether to permanently extend the Bush tax cuts for those making less than $250,000 as President Obama wants. Enforce budget rules that require Congress to pay for new spending and tax cuts.

Given the size of the entitlement burden, it is entirely fair to have a “serious discussion” about extending the Bush tax cuts for those making less than $250,000. But of course we’ve known this for a very long time. One wonders if it was responsible for either of the major party nominees to commit themselves to extending the Bush tax cuts. In the McCain campaign’s defense, it had a credible plan to reform the health system in a way that at least had the potential to “bend the cost curve” in a favorable direction.

Regardless, Hoyer made at least one very convincing criticism of congressional Republicans:

While Hoyer is a moderate, he remains a Democratic partisan. And he rips Republican lawmakers for opposing both tax increases and efforts to trim future growth in Medicare spending. He also hammers the GOP for the sin of superficiality: “The eagerness of so many to blast spending in the abstract without offering solutions that come close to measuring up to the size of the problem.”

Even Rep. Paul Ryan’s Roadmap, condemned by many Democrats in Congress as too extreme, arguably doesn’t go far enough in the direction of spending restraint (as Josh Barro has argued), though of course Ryan deserves credit, like Hoyer, for taking the long-term trajectory of the federal budget seriously.

As I understand it, Hoyer’s argument is that we’re being childish if we believe that we can continue with existing spending commitments without increasing the tax burden on middle class households as well as more affluent households. That sounds about right. The important question, to me, is whether existing spending commitments are or should be sacrosanct, and whether planned increases are worth the hit to net disposable income.