If President Barack Obama does not deal with entitlement spending in a meaningful way in the next four years, he will not leave behind a successful legacy, Alan Simpson, former GOP senator of Wyoming said Tuesday at a breakfast event put on by Politico at the Newseum.

“If he can’t cut the mustard with solvency of Social Security under honest appraisals of the trustees and he can’t get a handle on an automatic pilot rig of health care, he will have a failed presidency,” Simpson said.

Mike Allen, Politico chief White House correspondent, interviewed Simpson and Erskine Bowles, a former chief of staff to Bill Clinton and one of the leaders of President Obama’s debt commission, Tuesday morning.

Simpson aligned a failed presidency with a failure to reduce the deficit, as the pair discussed their new debt reduction plan, released to bridge the divide between the White House and House Republicans’ debt reduction proposals.