President Barack Obama has not released his budget for fiscal year 2015, but let it be known that he will not propose the use of an accurate inflation factor, “chained CPI,” in the government’s annual adjustments to Social Security and other benefits.

The measure would save $162.5 billion over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office, helping to trim entitlement costs that are on track to drive the U.S. budget deficit unsustainably higher beginning early in the next president’s first term. Appropriately tempered with protections for the very poor and very elderly, chained CPI is an efficient method of long-term deficit reduction that imposes only modest sacrifice on the vast majority of Americans.

Obama’s rationale for taking the idea out of his budget was openly political. “The president is not going to be in a position where he’s going to ask senior citizens and middle-class families to make sacrifices in pursuit of reducing the deficit and not ask the wealthy and well-connected to do so, too,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Thursday. “The second you bring up the prospect of closing tax loopholes, Republicans walk away.” Translation: I don’t want to take any heat for pursuing a deal with the GOP, even if that would be difficult, and even if it would be the right thing for the country.

Editorial, Pages 12 on 02/25/2014