Lindsey Graham on Obama: "There are nuggets of his budget that I think are optimistic"

There are nuggets of his budget that I think are optimistic. It’s overall a bad plan for the economy, but when you look at chained CPI and Medicare reductions, we’re beginning to set the stage for the grand bargain. Chained CPI, harmonize the retirement age of Medicare with Social Security, do some means testing for both programs, and in return flatten the tax code, generate about $600 billion of revenue.

And if you look at these changes over 30 years, it’s $4-5 trillion saving. So I’m looking for the biggest spending cut in American history by reforming entitlements, saving those entitlements. And the president’s showing a little bit of leg here. This is somewhat encouraging. His overall budget’s not going to make it, but he has sort of made a step forward in the entitlement reform process that would allow a guy like me to begin to talk about flattening the tax code and generating more revenue.