The Second Term Agenda

From CNN:

New details of President Barack Obama's plans for a second term were given in an off-the-record interview with the Des Moines Register Tuesday but made public only after the paper protested that leaving it private would be a disservice to Iowa voters. 

The interview was conducted Tuesday but made public Wednesday after the Obama campaign gave permission to the paper releasing them from their off-the-record agreement.

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"I'm confident we'll get done next year is immigration reform," Obama said in the transcript of the interview posted online by the paper. "And since this is off the record, I will just be very blunt. Should I win a second term, a big reason I will win a second term is because the Republican nominee and the Republican Party have so alienated the fastest-growing demographic group in the country, the Latino community."

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He also predicted the two political parties reach an agreement over the fiscal health of the United States, buoyed by a combination of financial factors, including the Bush tax cuts expiring, the sequester and a commitment from himself and GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney to reducing the deficit. Obama said he was "confident" about an agreement of $2.50 worth of cuts for every dollar of revenue.

$1.5 trillion in taxes will likely come from allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire, but $848 billion in savings will come from winding the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, in addition to $1 trillion in cuts already agreed to in budget negotiations with Congress.

Reaching agreements on these topics in the first year of a second term, the president said, would allow a focus on "some things that really historically have not been ideological."