Obama's Budget Plan To Slash Deficit By Raising Taxes on Businesses & Wealthy And Lowering War $$$

[ClarkUSA]

Barack's first budget plan's ways for halving the deficit in four years is a liberal/progressive's dream. Rush Limbaugh and his slavish followers in Congress will be screaming like stuck pigs very soon. Again. Heh.

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...Obama proposes to cut spending and raise taxes. The savings would come primarily from "winding down the war" in Iraq, a senior administration official said... 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.

Obama also proposes to maintain the tax on estates worth more than $3.5 million, instead of letting it expire next year. And he proposes "a fairly aggressive effort on tax enforcement" that would target tax havens and corporate loopholes, among other provisions, the official said.

Overall, tax collections under the plan would rise from about 16 percent of the economy this year to 19 percent in 2013, while federal spending would drop from about 26 percent of the economy, another post-war high, to 22 percent.... Republicans, who are already painting Obama as a profligate spender, are laying plans to attack him on taxes as well. Even some non-partisan observers question the wisdom of announcing a plan to raise taxes in the midst of a recession. But senior White House adviser David Axelrod said in an interview that the tax proposals reflect the ideas that won the election last fall.

"This is consistent with what the president talked about throughout the campaign," and "restores some balance to the tax code in a way that protects the middle class," Axelrod said. "Most Americans will come out very well here."

:kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick:

[stevedeshazer]

1. That's what I voted for.

:)

[babylonsister]

2. You're right about exploding heads. This sounds great! nt

[anonymous171]

3. Now this is fiscal responsibility I can believe in!

:kick:

[Cha]

4. They already had the jihad out on day one

so how much more can stuck pigs squeal? My apologies to pigs who are actually smarter than the fascist squealers.

[starroute]

5. I'd hope to see beefed up funding for the IRS

My understanding is that the ability of the IRS to go after wealthy tax cheats has been reduced dramatically and very deliberately in recent years -- fueled in part by scare stories about a few carefully-chosen cases of the IRS unfairly targeting ordinary citizens.

More auditors and more scrutiny of questionable returns in the upper brackets would do a lot to restore both fairness and receipts.

[Runcible Spoon]

6. Cautiously optimistic here; worried about slashes to "entitlements" spending and the direction of

healtcare. Article is prettty Freeperish: "Obama faces the long-term challenge of retirement and health programs that threaten to bankrupt the government years down the road". Ahh the good ole SS is going bankrupt meme.

[stillcool]

12. I have heard Obama say that ..

Social Security is not the problem, it is Medicaid that can not be sustained...and the nexus of it all is health insurance.

[earth mom]

7. I'll believe it when I see it. nt

[Thrill]

8. NYTIMES has it too

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/us/politics/22budget.html?_r=1&hp

[defendandprotect]

9. I'll take that TWICE . . . !!! As I recall however. . ..

the GOP did something which moved increasing taxes on wealthy into "Supermajority" votes?

Like you need 2/3rds to pass????

Anyone remember this -- hope I'm wrong...???

[Parker CA]

11. He won't actually be raising them, rather, letting them expire in 2011. n/t.

[defendandprotect]

17. 2011 . . . ????

We not only need to recind those tax cuts right now ---

we need to go back to the rates of the 1950's . .. !!!

[vaberella]

10. Thanks Obama, I'm glad I voted for you. n/t

[Hellataz]

13. he has yet to fail to live up to my expectations and i don't expect him to.

I don't know if one man can completly repair all the damage to this country, but he is off to a great start.

[EmilyAnne]

14. Raising taxes or letting the Bush tax cuts expire without reinstating them? n/t

[FrenchieCat]

15. Letting them expire......

which means no bipartanship required.

[bottomtheweaver]

16. That's change I can believe in.

I hope he sticks to his guns.

:kick:

[firedupdem]

18. That's my President! He is living up to every campaign promise

and then some.

[endersdragon34]

19. Not buying it...

Okay he raises the deficit from .45 trillion... to 1.75 trillion... then he says he will cut it in half. Isn't that still almost twice what it was last year? And hes going to do this just by raising taxes on the wealthiest 5% and ending the war in Iraq, while upping up the war in Afghanistan and possibly starting a new war in Western Pakistan (he already has said he plans to many times). I don't think there is a chance that they could pay THAT much, and switching the war efforts will just cancel each other out more or less. Yes he plans to cut some wasteful programs... but he is going to certainly start some new programs of his own (health care won't come cheap) while maybe its a better use of our deficit... its still our deficit. And yes we will get quite a bit of money back when the recession ends (CBO said it was going to end by the end of the year, even without the stimulus package), but not anywhere near enough considering some states won't want to take over the programs he is starting. How long until China stops loaning us money, haven't we already proven we are a credit risk? I am sorry, I just don't believe him about this budget deficit, and I think it will hurt the Democratic party come '10 just like Clinton got hurt in '94. Obama's main hope is to say he turned the economy around single handedly, and hope no one listens to what the CBO has to say... it could very well happen.

P.S. Just so you all know A) I am an independent, I don't trust either party, and B) I already have my flame proof vest on so do your worst!