New York Times op-ed:  Our Second Adolescence, by David Brooks:

My main complaint with Obama is that he promised to move us beyond these
stale debates, but he’s, instead, become a participant in them….My dream Obama would take advantage of the fact that only the president can fundamentally shift the terms. … My dream Obama would abandon the big government versus small government argument. … My dream Obama would nurture investment in three ways.

First, he would
take spending that currently goes to the affluent elderly and redirect
it to the young and the struggling. …

Second, Obama could nurture investment by starting a debate on the sort
of consumption tax plan Michael Graetz describes in his book 100
Million Unnecessary Returns: Enact a value-added tax, use money from
that tax to finance an income tax exemption of $100,000, cut the
corporate tax rate to 15%, replace the earned-income tax credit
with payroll tax relief and debit cards. This is a heavy lift politically, but it achieves Obama’s fairness goals while boosting growth.

Third, Obama could talk obsessively about family structure and social repair. …

My dream Obama wouldn’t be just one gladiator in the zero-sum budget
wars. He’d transform the sequester fight by changing the categories that
undergird it. He’d possess the primary ingredient of political
greatness: imagination. The great presidents, like Teddy Roosevelt, see
situations differently. They ask different questions. History pivots
around their terms.