With 2015 budget request, Obama will call for an end to era of austerity

[alp227]

Source: Washington Post

President Obama’s forthcoming budget request will seek tens of billions of dollars in fresh spending for domestic priorities while abandoning a compromise proposal to tame the national debt in part by trimming Social Security benefits.

With the 2015 budget request, Obama will call for an end to the era of austerity that has dogged much of his presidency and to his efforts to find common ground with Republicans. Instead, the president will focus on pumping new cash into job training, early-childhood education and other programs aimed at bolstering the middle class, providing Democrats with a policy blueprint heading into the midterm elections.

As part of that strategy, Obama will jettison the framework he unveiled last year for a so-called grand bargain that would have raised taxes on the rich and reined in skyrocketing retirement spending. A centerpiece of that framework was a proposal — demanded by GOP leaders — to use a less-generous measure of inflation to calculate Social Security benefits.

The idea infuriated Democrats and never gained much traction with rank-and-file Republicans, who also were unwilling to contemplate tax increases of any kind. On Thursday, administration officials said that the grand-bargain framework remains on the table but that it was time to move on.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/with-2015-budget-request-obama-will-call-for-an-end-to-era-of-austerity/2014/02/20/332808c2-9a6e-11e3-b931-0204122c514b_story.html?hpid=z1

[joshcryer]

1. The good thing about Obama's last term is the next candidate will have to follow.

They will have to admit that, say, marijuana isn't worse than alcohol, that gay marriage is the only good option, that austerity is a bad thing, etc.

It's going to be interesting.

[nomorenomore08]

4. His second term has pleasantly surprised me in many respects.

I wasn't feeling very enthusiastic circa November 2012, believe me...

[joshcryer]

5. Me either.

If he could back off on TPP then he'd be making some waves, but TPP is a geopolitical thing to block Russia and China out of trade negotiations. It has nothing to do with jobs.

[1StrongBlackMan]

13. Please expand on that comment ...

TPP is a geopolitical thing to block Russia and China out of trade negotiations.

Source? Discussion?

[joshcryer]

20. China and Russia were left out.

This is a good overview, though it is balanced in favor of TPP (it basically glosses over Chinese concerns): http://csis.org/files/publication/120620_Freeman_Brief.pdf

As the TPP agenda moves forward, many Chinese scholars have argued that the US’s major intention behind joining the TPP negotiations is not economic but geopolitical – to contain China’s rise in East Asia by reducing the Asian Pacific countries’ economic dependence on China. For instance, Li Xiangyang, Director of the Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), argues that the TPP is an important component of the U.S. strategy of “Returning to Asia” that includes both economic and geopolitical incentives, and one of its major incentives is to contain China’s rise.5 Li also anticipates that once the TPP comes into force, it will seriously undermine the effectiveness of the APEC framework, and China’s being excluded from the TPP will undercut the East Asian regional integration process that China has been propelling for over a decade, posing a great challenge to China’s rise in the future.6 Yang Jiemian, president of the Shanghai Institute of International Studies, suggests that the US “dilutes” and “reduces” (rather than “contains”) China’s influence in the Asia-Pacific region, which could be seen as a “soft confrontation”. 7

It's not about jobs, it's not about economics, it's about maintaining US power in that region of the world through economic subterfuge.

Jane Kelsey is at the forefront of this aspect of TPPA: http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/resurgence/2013/275/cover02.htm

http://www.itsourfuture.org.nz/tag/professor-jane-kelsey/

http://thedailyblog.co.nz/category/bloggers/professor-jane-kelsey/

She also did a good talk on it here:

[1StrongBlackMan]

23. Thank you ...

I must admit that I know very little about the TPP and EVERYTHING that I've found on the intertubes come from groups with have a clear agenda (whether pro or con). Usually I can count on DU to point me to neutral reporting on a subject, or if not that, DUers would point to counter-arguments from the position they personally hold ... people secure in their analysis/position do not fear the counter argument.
But not on this topic ... the leading posters refuse to entertain that there IS a factual counter-argument.

[joshcryer]

24. I am against TPP because it guarantees no climate change mitigation.

It actually forces everyone on the same page with regards to intellectual property. Environmental corporations in the United States will profit massively, but then the developing world will never have a chance to get a hold of that intellectual property. They'll never be able to get ahead. So we'll have given up the opportunity to really mitigate climate change to any reasonable degree.

But I am not foolish, I think it goes ahead regardless, the geopolitical influence it gives the United States and its partners is too great.

[Veilex]

14. Yes please...

Sources would be appreciated.
Anything that is not mere conjecture (not an accusation... just wanting more).

[joshcryer]

22. Hey, I replied in post #20.

Sorry for taking so long to get back to the thread, I don't get online until late.

[1StrongBlackMan]

25. Believe me ...

I appreciate your post more than you will ever know. The benefit of the internet is access to information ... the Bane of the internet is interest groups know how to manipulate access to the information.

If one googles TPP, the first 50 entries are clearly anti-TPP pieces, produced by interest groups that have a stake in shutting down TPP, followed by 50 entries of Pro-TPP entries produced by interest groups that have a stake in promoting the agreement ... neither of which I trust to inform my opinion.

[Veilex]

34. No worries, and thank you :)

[Phlem]

15. Riiiight.....

"It has nothing to do with jobs."

I'm going to bookmark this thread just for that comment.

FFS

-p

[joshcryer]

19. I should say it has nothing to do with creating jobs.

Though it may be claimed by those pushing for it, that is a lie, just as NAFTA wasn't intended to create jobs.

[fleabiscuit]

17. Point of order! :-)

I don’t know where joshcryer got his information but WTH I don’t mind taking a plunge in google pool when there’s time.

This is an interesting read IMHO.

THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE:
The elephant in the room: The geopolitics of the TPPA
http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/resurgence/2013/275/cover02.htm

Buuut, one would probably have to believe that the US was controlled by corporate plutocrats and the US was an empire builder.

OR

The TPPA was a secret method to counter environmental disaster and resource depletion and ease us into a steady state economy.

OR

Maybe something in between or outside those.

It’s all a secret.

I can hardly wait.

[joshcryer]

21. Ding, ding, that's the article I was thinking of.

Jane Kelsey knows her stuff.

[blkmusclmachine]

2. Money quote: "Administration officials said that the grand-bargain framework remains on the table.."

Of course it is...

[Recursion]

18. Except it doesn't. The sequester got rid of the table. They're just making Republicans look bad.

They say that for political reasons, but it just takes a calculator to tell you there is no grand bargain left. The sequester lowered the deficit so much that any deal now would be to increase the deficit. You don't need a "grand bargain" to do that.

[truthisfreedom]

3. Well I'm ready to start my pot farm the moment B gives the go!

Should be fun!

[Iliyah]

6. K & R

And the GOPers will do everything possible to block him while some on the left will remain critical just because, oh well.

[Overseas]

7. K&R. Glad to hear it.

[Myrina]

8. words ... words ... and more words ...

Meanwhile, behind closed doors ....

[on point]

9. My fears exactly. The words always sound good, but the deals terrible

[valerief]

10. Job training but no jobs. I wonder which rich people will get all the money. nt

[salib]

12. Exactly

Creating more capable workers for too few jobs only makes things worse. Wages actually go down.

However, as you said, some people will certainly get a few more 100's of millions to add to their billions.

[Phlem]

16. yep I was thinking that too.

Also a post above asserted that the TTP has nothing to do with jobs. I see pink elephants flying in my perfectly blue sky!!

What color is the sky in your world?

-p

[They_Live]

11. Does this mean

he is going to "undo" Food Stamp cuts?

[merrily]

28. And cuts to fuel subsidies for the poor?

[merrily]

29. Welcome back.

In Internet slang, a troll (/ˈtroʊl/, /ˈtrɒl/) is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people,[1] by posting inflammatory,[2] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a forum, chat room, or blog), either accidentally[3][4] or with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response[5] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.[6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_%28Internet%29

[Le Taz Hot]

30. Enjoy your stay.

I've a feeling it will be short. Oh, and if you want lock-step, try Democrats.com. All the lock step you need right there.

[myrna minx]

31. K&R

[L0oniX]

32. The homeless and the hungry children wait with eager expectation.

[woo me with science]

33. Oh, really? In year SIX?

Which just happens to be an election year?

Oh, the oiliness of Third Way election year rhetoric. Let's review just some of what we've heard this week:

SS cuts are out of the budget....for this year anyway.

It may not be the time to be aggressive about the TPP....right now.

We promise to defend net neutrality...... but we aren't actually going to use the FCC to STOP the corporate expansion of power. We just promise to rewrite the rules sometime down the road.

[daybranch]

35. I would feel a lot better if

Obama admits the austerity program did not work. I am frankly against the way his beliefs, which some might call Centrist, look just too much like those climate deniers whose views seem most designed only to help enrich themselves in money and power , at the expense of everyone else. A principled stand here would be admirable.