Plouffe: Obama to speak on long-term deficit reduction

President Obama will give a speech this week that lays out his plan for handling the nation’s fiscal management, White House senior advisor David Plouffe said Sunday.

“Later this week the president is going to speak about his approach to long-term deficit reduction,” Plouffe said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“He’s going to be clear about the type of deficit reduction we need in terms of dollar amounts, over what period of years,” Plouffe said.

The White House adviser did not offer specifics of the president’s plan, but he said that all options were on the table.

“Obviously you’ve got to look everywhere; it’s got to be a balanced approach. Every corner of the federal government has to be looked at here,” he said.

Last week, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) introduced the GOP’s budget blueprint for fiscal 2012.

The ambitious legislation, which has virtually no chance of being approved in the Senate, reduces 10 years of deficits by $1.649 trillion compared to the status quo, and balances the budget shortly before 2040.

Plouffe said that Ryan’s budget proposal had some good ideas in it, but that it put too much of the economic burden of debt reduction on economically vulnerable portions of the population.

“Seniors, the poor, the middle class in the congressional Republican plan are asked to bear most of the burden,” Plouffe said. “If you weren’t giving enormous tax cuts to millionaires, you wouldn’t have to do that.”