Obama to Unveil an Ambitious Budget Plan

[deminks]

Source: Washington Post

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."

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/21/AR2009022100911.html?hpid=topnews

[Rosa Luxemburg]

1. This is just the start! This is one of the toughest times we have been in

Obama is doing a great job. I'm impressed.

[BlooInBloo]

2. I cannot take this betrayal any longer. Ron Paul is clearly our only option.

[Bolo Boffin]

4. Please tell me you are being sarcastic.

:fingers crossed:

[Fearless]

14. Oh really... is it the part about him supporting (in theory) the repeal of the 13-15th amendments?

Because gov't shouldn't legislate such things? Help me out here.

[Bolo Boffin]

3. OK, what this is talking about is deficit spending, not the overall deficit.

The actual amount of the national debt is over $10 trillion.

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

Obama is going to cut deficit spending in half by 2013, the amount each year that we add to the deficit. If he can pull that off, then he could campaign on ending deficit spending by 2017 or sooner. That would put us in line to start paying the real deficit down again, the way Clinton was doing.

This is good stuff here.

[Fearless]

15. Yes, there is a difference between deficit and the national debt.

[bluestateguy]

5. If we taxed churches, synagogues and mosques, etc. much new revenue could be brought in

I'd be all for it, so long as all religions were taxed equally.

(Fundie conservatives would probably only tax the Muslims and Jews if they had their way.)

[Merlot]

11. Interesting idea, but if we tax religion doesn't that blur the line between

church and state? And if we tax churches, then they would be able to legally do all the illegal things they are doing now in politics.

[dixiegrrrrl]

12. 2 things

The church and state thing was to keep government from dictating to churches, forms of religion.
Since all this "faith based" political stuff has been going on illegally, taxing the churches makes sense, addresses the reality that churches have always been used to garner support for social issues.
So tax them and make their activity legal.

[MindMatter]

17. Moreover, many of these churches are not charities in fact

Many of them are operating huge private schools. Anything that doesn't involve running a bread line should be taxed just like any other business.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

6. The mechanisms and artifices of business...

Have been the primary beneficiaries of government largess in the last 6-8 months and the big economic winners in the last 30 years. Now we know that the bedrock upon which that success was built was corrupt and illusory. Not to mention heartless. In the midst of the largess that emanated from Washington and the states, even though incredibly copious, they still had to hide their companies and their fortunes offshore, from the country that was making them wealthy and bending over backwards to do it in the process.

Enough. That's it. Basta.

They have received much, these people and now it is time for them to pay up. The bill has come due. As far as I am concerned, nationalization of some banking institutions is not a matter of "if" but of "when?". I agree with the assessment that BOC and CIT won't live more than 90 days. They are "dead men walking" and it is time to take them over and strip them for parts. There are others like them out there. Identify them and put them out of our misery.

As for any companies that make noises about paying their fair share and threatening to move offshore? Fine. You do that. As soon as the last light is off, we'll seize your every asset in the US, form corporations around those assets and turn those corporations and their AMERICAN WORKERS loose to go straight at you in the marketplace and run you into the ground, while government investigators aggressively examine every aspect of the way you did business in the US, with the full and stated intention of finding the full measure of your perfidy and corruption and making those responsible pay and pay very dearly, indeed.

You declare economic war on the country that made you wealthy, we'll pick up that gauntlet, put it on and beat you into a pink, frothy pulp. Of that, you can be quite, quite certain.

[jaysunb]

16. Wow !

Did you ever say a mouthful ! :thumbsup:

[midnight]

7. Let's get more sober and end the wars.

Obama's budget is lower than the nearly "$190 billion the nation budgeted for Iraq and Afghanistan last year".

Let's just get out of there and save lives and money.

"Obama also seeks to increase tax collections, primarily by making good on his promise to eliminate the temporary tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 for wealthy taxpayers, whom Obama defined during the campaign as those earning more than $250,000 a year. Those tax breaks would be permitted to expire on schedule for the 2011 tax year, when the top tax rate would rise from 35 percent to more than 39 percent."

Stop those taxbreaks for the wealthy now.

[underpants]

8. Fox News: Obama Budget to Rely on War Cuts, Taxes on Rich

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/02/21/official-obama-aims-cut-budget-deficit-half/

[Left Coast2020]

9. 39-Percent? Hell, it should be at least 55-percent.

Its high time the wealthy paid their fair share. This is way overdue. Of course, Rush Limp-butt will complain this is a "communist budget". But if he doesn't want to contribute to this country, then he can move to China, or some other country that does not have a tax system. I like this proposal. And the troops should be coming home too--all of them! We've wasted too much money on that affair. Its money down the toilet. Spend it here. I'll bet you a dollar to donuts Limp-butt calls this budget "communist". One other point: those below $30,000 should pay NO TAX. So three cheers to this president who is exhibiting some common sense on getting this country back on track. But the 39-percent figure is a bit too low if you ask me. :beer:

[4lbs]

13. That's the rate it was as Clinton left and Bush took office.

The highest tax rate was 39.6%. Bush dropped it to 35%. That was for those making $250,000 or higher.

For someone with income of $250K it's an extra $11500 in income taxes annually.

For a person making a million a year, it's an extra $40600 annually in taxes.

The 4.6% increase will bring in at least $200 billion annually in taxes. That money could go towards expanded healthcare coverage for all.

[Renew Deal]

10. Can't wait to see what gets cut

Especially any whole government agencies or corporations.

[hollowdweller]

18. Does the budget cut defense spending??

From the figures I have seen the US spending on defense is way out of line compared to even the next highest spending country.

I think that there are tons of unneeded programs and inefficiencies in the Defense Budget, which is never questioned that could be eliminated.