Liberals: Barack Obama must do more than counter Ryan

[ProSense]

Liberals: Barack Obama must do more than counter Ryan

By MJ LEE

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Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), who voted against the fiscal commission’s final plan, told POLITICO he doesn’t believe major cuts to education, health care and programs for seniors and veterans should be a part of Obama’s comprehensive plan. “I keep trying to figure out: When did a Head Start kid create these massive deficits?” Becerra said, referring to the administration’s education program that aims to benefit low-income families. “A program like Head Start is miniscule, but it and other domestic discretionary programs were taking a lion share of the hit.”

The White House has consistently maintained that it does not plan to cut funding for education programs such as Head Start and Race to the Top, a competitive grant program to encourage school improvement. Friday’s budget deal for the remainder of the 2011 fiscal year lived up to this promise, and Becerra says the administration must take the same approach in the future.

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Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), another member of the deficit commission who largely disagreed with the panel’s recommendations, emphasized that Obama must convince the country that deficit reduction and a more efficient government can be achieved – but not on the backs of the middle class, the poor and seniors.

“The worldview of Paul Ryan and Barack Obama is very different – it’s Barack Obama who wants to protect ordinary Americans, and Paul Ryan is clearly out to protect the very small segment of the richest,” Schakowsky told POLITICO on Tuesday, speaking out against lowering tax rates for the wealthiest. “I just don’t understand at all the Paul Ryan budget. … I don’t understand it even from a balancing the budget point of view – it’s ridiculous.”

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[Vincardog]

1. IF they are so hot to cut things let them cut the things that created the deficit

Cut tax breaks for the rich. Make the top marginal tax rate 70%
Cut the military budget by 50% return it to the level is was before aWoL was illegally appointed.
Cut the illegal wars of aggression for corporate profit.
Cut the obscene profits of the financial vultures by having a 90% tax on the venture capitalists.

[ladjf]

3. Your suggestions, good ones I might add, are very similar to those

being promoted by the Progressive Caucus. We need for these ideas to be seen by all Americans.

[Qutzupalotl]

2. K&R

[craigmatic]

4. Yup they should cut farm and oil subsidies and the military while raising taxes on the rich.