Obama made his speech on the deficit today, and let the Republicans have it with both barrels. First, he restated some basic facts. He pointed out that the wealthy in this country had always paid a larger share of the upkeep of the country. He also mentioned that the USA had regularly runs deficits, mainly during war or recession. His speech also reminded us that much of our debt was caused by two wars and a prescription drug program which barred the US from using its marketing leverage to gain more advantageous prices, both legacies of the Bush administration. He compared this to the expenditures in his term that were necessary to abate the recession and which did exactly that.
Obama's main thrust was that the Paul Ryan's budget wasn't really about fiscal rectitude but about ideology—an ideology that would throw the elderly to the curb by trashing Medicare and replacing it with a voucher program, and the outlays of which would fall further and further behind the market costs of getting the care they need. Further, such investments in clean energy and education that such programs, like the Pell Grants, provide are essential to keep up with our overseas economic rivals. Those countries, like China and South Korea are somehow are able to find the money for this and don't seem to suffer economically thereby.
He correctly pointed out the absurdity of tax cuts for the well-off to pay for that, an upper splinter of the wealthy who have made more money while most Americans have suffered. His mathematical example aptly illustrated that. One $200,000 tax cut for him equals 33 seniors paying $6000 more in health costs (the extra they'd have to pay under the Republican plan). He also promised not to renew the tax cuts for the rich again.
He also took a shot at the fawning over the Ryan plan by some in the media:
There's nothing serious about a plan that claims to reduce the deficit by spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. And I don't think there's anything courageous about asking for sacrifice from those who can least afford it and don't have any clout on Capitol Hill.
Although Obama's plan still has domestic spending cuts, he also looks to defense cuts, the use of government's purchasing power to get better drug prices for Medicare. He also challenged the canard that Social Security is responsible for our deficit, although some tweaking is necessary.
Ryan's assertion that there isn't a revenue problem overlooks the fact that $136 billion could be saved by bringing most taxes just back to Clinton-era levels. This is not to mention that he wants to reduce the top bracket to a mere 25%, its lowest in 80 years. Having a 0.5% tax on stock transactions could raise $100 billion-plus a year and would put more costs on the people who helped bring about this recession. Obama ought to have mentioned both.
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Comments: 30
But the Min wage was raised and the exact opposite of what the naysayers were saying happened.
Further, you are contradicting yourself. You can't argue that taxes will create a double-dip recession and then say that paying down the deficit is imperative; austerity will choke-off the recovery if done precipitously just as much as tax increases will.
Although a deficit reduction plan must be in place over the next few years, there is no reason not to have Clinton-level tax rates as part of a plan to do so. As Zandi's analysis of the impact of ARRA showed, certain types of expenditures are more productive then tax breaks for hedge fund speculators, millionairs and rich heirs.
There is no contradiction, you don’t have to raise taxes to balance the budget. Just stop spending. It is called being “responsible”. You assume that the government can create wealth, it does nothing of the sort. It only takes wealth and constricts the economy at the same time.
I have one question for you: “Has the experiment failed?” Can Man govern himself? Can man be trusted with money, or is it really the governments money that we get only a little, in order to receive the illusion of freedom?
Or
Are we truly free responsible and able to earn a living and pay our own way based on our own interpretation of what we need, rather than what some bureaucrat thinks?
Much as you'd like to bring back the Gilded Age of the 19th century, it isn't coming back.
We start by balancing the budget and make some small payments on the principle the way any family would attack a debt. Anything else would be Dishonest to the American people and fiscally irresponsible, something that the republicans and the democrats seem to be good at these days.
Families have unlimited wants and limited resources and that is exactly what the government needs to learn.
Greece does not have a AAA rating for a reason. We can learn what they have learned the hard way or not. But learn we will.
As for the wars, well take that up with the war monger in chief.
As to warmonger in chief, Obama hasn't lied to get us into any wars, he's drawn down our commitment in Iraq and the chances of Libya costing us anything like what Iraq costs us are very small given that we aren't actually occupying the country.
Oh, the power to tax and spend for the general welfare does cover healthcare, etc.
": The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; "
There is nothing in after that semi-colon to indicate that it is intended to be limited to specific enumerated objects. The only thing after that semi-colon is the requirement for apportionment of direct taxes. So you didn't even get the application of the semi-colon correctly.
I am willing to bet in the year that the constitution was written, that they were not thinking of the word "industrial" However your point about roads may have merit as long as you are referring to "post roads".
“[T]he laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. They [Congress] are not to lay taxes ad libitum for any purpose they please; but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union. In like manner, they are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose.”
Thomas Jefferson
The way I read this and apply it to the constitution, I believe that taxes are imposed only to pay the debts of the union, not to redistribute wealth.
If we interpreted the constitution the way you are, then there is no need for enumerated powers at all.
My opinion of the constitution is locked in the 18th century, if you want something a bit newer, then create an amendment!
Obama's money was spent to abate the Great Recession, the war in Iraq was a total sinkhole.
Reform the tax code, cut spending down to less than what the government takes in and make payments on the debt.
Hold Obama's feet to the fire. He promised us that he would be pulling out, right?
The Republican Party has become a party of economic luddites, ne’er do wells, and structural defaulters.
The new mantra for the latest crop of pillagers is I never voted for various Republican measures, including the 2001 tax cut, 2003 tax cut, Medicare Part D, cost of troops for Iraq and Afghanistan, six years of emergency appropriations to cover items never mentioned in budget, etc., and I will never pay for them.
In short, from 2001 through 2008, their Republican predecessors, currently in leadership positions in the party, including Senators McConnell and Kyl, and Representatives Boehner, Cantor, and Ryan, all voted to run deficits to for unfunded allocations and programs, and knowingly borrowed the money to cover the expenditures (including hundreds of billions of dollars from the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, to cover the cost of the legislation enacted by the various sessions of Congress.
Now that the time has come to start paying for the unfunded war expenses, the unfunded Part D prescription plan, and the hundreds of billions of unfunded earmarks, Rep. Ryan is proposing to even up by replacing Medicare with vouchers. Rep. Boehner and other Republican leaders started telling Americans that the Republican party supports legislation to reduce retirement benefits by extending the retirement age for Social Security and utilizing means testing to further reduce benefits.
For some strange reason the party opposes all tax increases does not consider gutting Medicare benefits and significantly reducing Social Security benefits to be a tax increase. Really.
When questions are raised, the various alleged members of the Republican leadership keep saying Tut! Tut! Tut!, we know what we are doing. We are not increasing taxes on poor, middle class, or retired people, we are simply going to reduce, limit, and take away their options for medical care. When we get done with Medicaid and Medicare the Republicans will proceed to impose means testing on and extending the eligibility age for Social Security retirement benefits.
The Republicans are bald-facedly telling the American electorate, the U.S. financial services sector, and the global financial leaders that the Republican approach to solve the deficit problems can best be stated by paraphrasing the message stated in the infamous press release issued by a Pentagon public affairs officer during the Vietnam War and simply state “We (the Republicans) destroyed the village (Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security), in order to save it”.
And while the village comprised of Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security is being trashed, the Republicans will use the savings to reduce corporate and personal income taxes at the top brackets and sack the Social Security Trust Fund. They see nothing wrong with redistributing income, as long as it is upward.
We know it’s Springtime and the circus is in town; but that does not mean we want the elected Members of Congress to be trying out for position of head clown.
Food fights are for the ignorant and uncaring. The American electorate rightfully expect their elected Members of Congress to represent the people and defend and strengthen the viability and strength of our nation, our economy, and our government, not reenact Saturday Night Live.
The purported corporations and high income earners do not create jobs in the U.S., they do not serve in the Armed Forces, two-thirds of the corporations do not pay taxes, and all complain loudly and consistently that any tax they pay is too high.
Do you really think the American middle class should give up health care (Medicare) and (Social Security) income in retirement already funded with a lifetime of FICA payroll savings by millions of American employers and hundreds of millions of Americans employees to give them more tax cuts?
The fact that Congress borrowed and spend the proceeds of the Medicare and Social Security trust funds does not give them Congress right to now walk away from repaying the money the borrowed with the full faith and credit of the United States Treasury, any more than they will tell the various foreign countries, including Saudi Arabia and China, pension funds, hedge funds, and individual investors that they will not be repaid.
The Ryan plan does more to save Social security and Medicare, than any of the plans that I have seen to date.
This deficit also has another source, and that would be all the domestic spending that we have enjoyed. From what I have seen, 8 years of war spending is less than 2.5 years of domestic spending. Did you know that our government is giving more money to American families in one form or another, than it takes in for revenue? Thus you could cut out 100% of defense spending and you would still have a growing debt issue.