There is a lot of good commentary about why Obama putting chained-CPI in his budget is bad politics. But I think one of my main concerns is that it (partially) adjusts expectations about where the "liberal" and "conservative" positions are on this issue.
Obama put chained-CPI in his budget not to state a policy preference, but rather to endorse what he believes could be the outline for a fair proposal. This isn't really what a budget is for. A budget is for laying out a broad policy vision that makes clear your general spending and taxing priorities. If you want to let the public know you endorse compromising some of your goals to achieve other ones, you leak that information to the press during budget negotiations. This is exactly what Obama did last December during the fiscal cliff talks.
Obama is the President, but he is also the de facto leader of the Democratic party. By putting chained-CPI in his budget, he has shifted the party's stance on entitlement spending to the right. Its not inconceivable that Republicans are going to be able to paint any Democratic candidate who runs in 2016 on a platform of not cutting entitlement programs as an extremist. "Even Obama was willing to endorse chained-CPI" could be an effective attack.
I've generally been in favor of a lot of the compromises Obama has made over the last four years, but to announce the compromise you are willing to make ahead of time as part of a budget is both a tactical and strategic error.
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