Johnson and Roosevelt Legacies at Stake in Fiscal Fight

WASHINGTON — After helping President Lyndon B. Johnson pass his Great Society programs in the 1960s, Larry O’Brien gave his memoir a humble, and prescient, title: “No Final Victories.”

Mr. O’Brien’s observation has come sharply into focus, in Washington and on the presidential campaign trail. The accelerating debates over taxes, spending and economic policy amount to the most fundamental challenge yet to the achievements of Johnson and President Franklin D. Roosevelt a generation earlier.

President Obama’s speech last week demanding that Congress pass his $447 billion American Jobs Act touched off a narrower discussion. The plan adopts both Democratic and Republican strategies for near-term job creation and economic growth using tax cuts or direct government spending or both.

But in the presentation that Mr. Obama plans next week, the two parties will play for larger stakes. That is when the president will spell out his solution to America’s long-term budget gap while, at the same time, trying to finance his jobs package....