How soon before anti-Obama voters gripe about proposed cuts?

Oh, soon - perhaps as early as next year when the Republican-led House tries figuring out what to cut out of the new budget. The WSJ's David Wessel explains:

Say Congress zeroed out all annually appropriated domestic, nondefense spending, which amounts to about 17% of all federal outlays and excludes benefits such as Social Security and Medicare. That would mean no air-traffic controllers, tax collectors or cabinet secretaries. No test tubes, lights in federal buildings or federal job-training grants. The deficit in 2020? Still uncomfortably large: $668 billion and growing, according to estimates by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a deficit watchdog. "You are going to have to attack health, Social Security and 'tax expenditures,' " says Barry Anderson, a former White House and CBO staffer, referring to the targeted tax credits and loopholes that often substitute for spending.

You mean Social Security and Medicare? I wouldn't bet on it. Virtually ignored during the rough-and-tumble campaign is a sobering bit of demographics: The first of the baby boomers are now hitting 65 - tens of millions more will follow over the next 20 or so years. And many of them will rely on Social Security for a good deal of their retirement income. From a brief by the Century Foundation:

Although the stock market has recovered somewhat in recent months, the baby boomers have little time left before retirement to rebuild the wealth they lost in the past couple of years. As a result, many boomers will be even more dependent than they anticipated on Social Security, Medicare, and, for some, Medicaid, to provide them with a degree of security after they stop working. The experience during the economic crisis underscores the importance of preserving, and even strengthening, these essential social insurance programs.

Various studies come up with varying conclusions on how prepared boomers will be for retirement, but it's generally agreed that a significant percentage do not have adequate savings, even with Social Security and Medicare. Taking away or sharply reducing those benefits isn't likely to go down very well.