Obama turns to budget, health care, entitlements

[Jeep789]

Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON – After focusing his first month on the economic mess he inherited, President Barack Obama now starts rolling out his own far-reaching agenda with a summit on fiscal policy, his first speech to Congress and the unveiling of his budget for 2010.

This coming week will mark a turning point from what Obama felt compelled to do, to what he wants to do. It also may test how much spending, change and ambition the American people and their elected officials can stomach in a short time.

On Monday, Obama will try to snap Washington's collective mind-set back to fiscal restraint, just days after signing a record-breaking spending plan to stimulate the moribund economy. His afternoon-long "fiscal responsibility summit" at the White House is bound to set off sparks.

Liberals worry that renewed attention to long-term deficits will stall their progressive agenda, which they don't feel should suffer because of transgressions by banks, mortgage lenders and automakers. Some worry that Social Security is being unfairly lumped with Medicare's more serious financial problems, and they are determined to squelch any hints of curbing benefits in the retirement program.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090221/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_agenda

[jody]

1. If Obama says "fiscal restraint" to mean balanced budget -- ROFL. n/t

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

16. Since the person I'm replying to has me on ignore, somebody please ask him to elaborate. -nt

[Vincardog]

2. If they are so worried about the budget deficit where are the cuts to the Pentagon and the CIA?

[CountAllVotes]

3. hands off the entitlements OBAMA

Keep your hands off of Social Security! This is money that WE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE OWN!

:argh:

:kick:

[Dr.Phool]

7. Maybe he means entitlements that Wall Street feels entitled to.

:sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

[DesertFlower]

9. i hate when they refer

to social security as an entitlement.

[Jeep789]

14. We are entitled to it because we paid for it

Perhaps, we just need to take the term back. (Kind of like "progressive" and "liberal".) Repukes have nothing against their entitlements, legacy admission to schools, tax shelters, a justice system advantage etc.

[ProgressIn2008]

4. When Obama uses the frame of "entitlements" he's no better than a Republican

Hands off!

[CountAllVotes]

6. he'll be having it invested by Wall Street

he's already given them a trillion++ or so. Why not give him THE PEOPLE'S MONEY TOO?

:mad:

[StarryNite]

5. Where's the change?

I'm not seeing a whole lot of difference so far. I know he's barely gotten into office but still...

[dtotire]

8. Obama to Unveil an Ambitious Budget Plan

Source: Washington Post

Obama to Unveil an Ambitious Budget Plan

By Lori Montgomery and Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, February 21, 2009; 3:00 PM

President Obama is putting the finishing touches on an ambitious first budget that seeks to cut the federal deficit in half over the next four years, primarily by raising taxes on business and the wealthy and by slashing spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, administration officials said.

In addition to tackling a deficit swollen by the $787 billion stimulus package and other efforts to ease the nation's economic crisis, the budget blueprint will press aggressively for progress on the domestic agenda Obama outlined during the presidential campaign. This would include key changes to environmental policies and a major expansion of health coverage that Obama hopes to enact later this year.

A summary of Obama's budget request for the fiscal year that begins in October will be delivered to Congress on Thursday, with the complete, multi-hundred-page document to follow in April. But Obama plans to unveil his goals for scaling back record deficits and rebuilding the nation's costly and inefficient health care system Monday, when he addresses more than 100 lawmakers and budget experts at a White House summit on restoring "fiscal responsibility" to Washington.

In his weekly radio and Internet address today, Obama expressed determination to "get exploding deficits under control" and described his budget request as "sober in its assessments, honest in its accounting, and lays out in detail my strategy for investing in what we need, cutting what we don't, and restoring fiscal discipline."

Reducing the deficit, he said, is critical to the nation's future: "We can't generate sustained growth without getting our deficits under control."


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/21/AR2009022100911_pf.html






Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/21/AR2009022100911_pf.html

[Pharaoh]

10. Social Security is not

an entitlement. It is retirement insurance we all pay into.

And if the Government would keep their hands out of our piggy bank it will be fine.

Medicare should be expanded to include everyone and we will get rid of insurance companys and drug companys. We can make or buy those drugs 100 times cheaper.


Fuck the greedy bastards!

[toopers]

11. Unfortunately, most people do not use it as insurance. . .

they see it as their primary retirement source of income.

[sutz12]

12. And more people are seeing it that way every day.

as more "commercial" kinds of retirement plans melt away like the winter snows, SS is the only thing many people have left to depend on.

Thank god Bush failed in his bid to privatize social security.

[toopers]

15. Sorry, I think people should be responsible for their own . . .

retirement.

[blues90]

13. SS is not free money given to us , we paid into it.

If they start talking about cutting back on it then wait and see what happens when the boomers who are on it already and who are depending on it soon take to the streets.
You want to get responsible then put used furnature in the whitehouse , let the government pay for their own insurance and cut off the war funds and the free trips , let them pay for it out of their own pockets filled with lobbiest money that we know they all get. And stop sending billions to other countries that don't need it and buy weapons with it.