Budget tactics vs. Budget strategy

Recently there was some mild political controversy about the administration's cutting the rate of growth of Medicare spending.

I'm a fan of neither social spending, nor of tax increases. However, I am a fan of reponsible budgeting. It was only a couple of years ago that this very same administration worked overtime to saddle the nation with a massive prescription drug benefit for Medicare. We saw last month how that was a bright idea...

After working so hard to increase Medicare spending, now they're working hard to reduce it.

In war, one distinguishes between tactics and strategy. If fighting the deficit is a war, what exactly is the administration's strategy?

(That's a rhetorical question.)