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President Obama’s Budget is Disappointing
Good but limited measures on tax reform are sacrificed, once again, to Obama's eagerness to compromise on budget cuts
President Obama's proposed budget has a few interesting proposals for reforms over the next decade. Among the best are the proposals to rescind the Bush tax cuts for households with incomes of more than $250,000, and to tax dividends for stockholders among this group as ordinary income. These and a few other proposals would sum up to a small but significant step in the opposite direction to where this country has been going for the past three decades: that is, a vast upward redistribution of income to the rich and the super-rich.
President Barack Obama speaks about education and his 2013 budget on Monday at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale, VA. (Photograph: Susan Walsh/AP)
But those concerned with the immediate future are likely to be disappointed. Most Americans have to work for a living, but there are more than 25 million, or 15%, of the labor force, who are either unemployed, have given up looking for work, or are involuntarily working part time. The main reason for that is quite simple: there is not enough demand for goods and services in the economy in order to employ them.
With private demand still weak from the collapse of the housing bubble, and state and local governments still tightening their budgets and laying off workers, this leaves the federal government as the spender of last resort. But President Obama's budget actually reduces spending, adjusted for inflation, for the coming fiscal year (2013). This means that the government will not contribute to resolving the unemployment crisis under this budget.
This is too bad, because the US economy is down 10 million jobs from where it should be. And even at the recent rate of job growth (200,000 per month over the last quarter), it will take until 2020 to get there.
There are some areas where the budget proposes spending that would create jobs in the coming fiscal year, and the administration has touted these proposals: surface transportation projects ($18.2bn); teachers ($10b); and modernizing schools ($6bn). But these are small amounts relative to the need for job creation, and the latter two are less than for the prior fiscal year.
Unfortunately, President Obama has accepted way too much of the rightwing narrative, which portrays the United States' budget deficit and debt as the most important economic problem. In his speech Monday, the president said:
"I'm proposing some difficult cuts that, frankly, I wouldn't normally make if they weren't absolutely necessary. But they are. And the truth is we're going to have to make some tough choices in order to put this country back on a more sustainable fiscal path."
But in the short run, there is no deficit or debt problem: the United States is currently paying about 1.4% of GDP in net interest on our federal debt, which is about as low as it has been over the past 60 years. And the long-term deficit problem is a problem of rising healthcare costs. If we had the healthcare costs per person of any other high-income country, we would be looking at long-term budget surpluses. That is how the president should frame the budget issue. His proposals should focus on creating employment, reducing poverty – which, amazingly, is now back at the level of the late 1960s – and moving toward a more energy-efficient economy, all of which are complementary goals.
And if there are cuts to be made – to free up spending for job creation – they are not difficult choices at all: who will suffer if we give up on policing the world with hundreds of military bases throughout the globe? As most Americans have now learned, unnecessary, protracted wars such as in Iraq and Afghanistan do not increase our security, but rather reduce it. But the president's budget avoids any serious reduction of this largest and most harmful source of waste of taxpayers' dollars.
The president's budget is just a proposed framework and, of course, many of the positive things in it will not get through Congress. Since that is the case, it would have been worth his while to propose something bold that addresses the most pressing needs of the nation – and make the necessary compromises from there. By starting with something timid, which is already being attacked as "radical" by House Republicans – well, we have seen where this leads.
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72 Comments so far
Show AllWhy would anyone want to read articles from the corporate media on this site? If you want to read pro-elite columns from millionaire "journalists," go to the those propaganda sites. No one want to read that filth here.
The articles are coming from Europe because there are very, very few real journalists in the U.S., anymore.
"if we give up on policing the world"
Oh, is that what it's called? Sorta' like Hitler policed Europe.
Although Hitler was the 20th century fascist champion, you won't find goose stepping, book burning Nazis in the US.
21st century fascists' propaganda and surveillance would make Hitler green with envy.
We have seen where this leads, indeed! Proposals, timid and dismal ones at that, and we all know the lack of conviction and follow through this Wall Street shill and perpetual candidate practices. I fail to understand how it is that Weisbrot is amazed that poverty is back to the levels of the 1960s. Where has he been since the 1970s? Has he not been paying attention? While Weisbrot is correct that decreasing the far-too-bloated military budget (comprised entirely of taxpayer subsidized war-for-profit spending in what amounts to corporate welfare, the most immense part of discretionary spending) and instituting a national health plan (such as Medicare for all, just like the members of Congress have, or better yet, like the one Australians enjoy) will result in a budget surplus, he fails to understand that the US military and wars of aggression have nothing to do with increasing security, just as the for-profit health care system has nothing to do with health care. They are both pursuing the same goal: PROFITS. Military spending is not wasted at all... it provides a steady stream of funds from the public purse to make the world safe for the Fortune 500. Weisbrot also is seemingly clueless as to the actual motives of our government, which, since its very founding, have been dedicated to protecting the minority of the opulent against the majority (Madison), and is and ought to be run by the people that own it (John Jay). Weisbrot also fails to understand that the goals of government are not the betterment of the people, but the enrichment of the few at the expense of the many, to ensure that democracy is in name only, and that the common people remain spectators, not participants. Unemployment is a good thing in the eyes of the owners, for it ensures that profits to the owners will continue and grow, and that workers, the actual wealth creators, will be glad to simply eek out a subsistence, and will refrain from dissent or even the mildest of protests, deterring that hated beast called democracy. What Wesibrot and others on the alleged left fail to grasp is that "the needs of the nation" are not the concern of the ruling elites; it is the demands of the top 1/10 of 1% who control the State, those that buy and sell politicians and elections, that determine policy. All this blather about what the president "should do" simply shows Weisbrot's ignorance or naivete, or both. In the end, what difference does it make whether the corporate shill and Wall Street lackey in the White House makes bold or timid proposals?...he has no intention of doing anything other than abandoning them, just as he has done in the past. Has Wesibrot never seen a campaigning politician making empty promises before?
______________________________________
Excellent comment!
"...But in the short run, there is no deficit or debt problem: the United States is currently paying about 1.4% of GDP in net interest on our federal debt, which is about as low as it has been over the past 60 years..."
----------------
This article is satisfactory but the sentence above deserves critique.
The reason the deficits and debt are currently manageable is because of the Federal Reserve's QE money-printing programs (and to a lesser extent Europe's insolvency crisis). Absent the Fed printing money (and they are now the largest holder of debt) the interest rates on Treasuries would be soaring and the debt would be crippling. So the dollar is in the process of being inflated away to keep interest rates low to make the debt manageable. This is a recipe for disaster not something to celebrate.
Getting a little more inflation going would be a good thing for the millions who can't find a job. A little more inflation would help convince people to find other uses for their money than to park it in savings. Savings are currently a huge 'bubble.' If people spend it instead, then demand will rise, as will jobs. Personally, the higher inflation may pinch me since I like the safety of parking my money. So, the government needs to prod me to find another avenue for my cash.
Inflation always raises prices of commodities like Health Care, gas, heating oil, food etc more than wages can ever expect to rise - especially in an economy with ugh unemployment where in REALITY we get deflation of Actual Wages and inflation of prices.
The Fed’s EXPLICIT Goal Is to Devalue the Dollar by 33% … and NEGATIVE Yield Bonds Are Coming
Forbes’ Charles Kadlec notes:
The Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) has made it official: After its latest two day meeting, it announced its goal to devalue the dollar by 33% over the next 20 years. The debauch of the dollar will be even greater if the Fed exceeds its goal of a 2 percent per year increase in the price level.
...
The Fed has announced a course of action that will steal — there is no better word for it — nearly 10 percent of the value of American’s hard earned savings over the next 4 years.
Unedited: http://tinyurl.com/7hg89nc
Sure, this plan pinches those with savings, but it helps keep and return manufacturing to the US. We need the jobs, but perhaps even more important, we need the innovation that comes with having the physical manufacturing plants here in America.
Greg R started one of the most delusional strings I have read in a long time.
The Fed is keeping Interest rates low by printing record amounts of dollars which is one of the most inflationary actions you can take. Combine that with the free money for speculating in an unregulated environment, and its not a question of IF infllation will result but how much inflation will result.
Since 1981 the US Government has understated the rate of inflation, thereby assuring that inflation and bubbles cannot be controlled.
It will not cause inflation unless it causes demand to go over the pre-recession levels. Once demand starts going up, the additional money can then be removed from the economy. It is not creating money that causes inflation, changes in the supply-demand ratio causes deflation or inflation (one of the causes). The money supply of course can affect the demand part of that, if demand is already depressed, there is room for monetary expansion to increase demand without causing inflation.
A 10% tariff on all imports would bring in $200 billion a year. Since we import far more than we export, we'd be "ahead of the game" with a tariff. Set the tariff up so anything "not manufactured or produced in the USA is subject to the tariff" and suddenly it isn't so "profitable" to manufacture things outside the USA as before!
Yes, the plan is to INSOURCE those jobs back from China and Mexico at Chinese and Mexican wages.
The Volkswagen plant in Tennessee is paying new hires $12/hr.
The Caterpillar jobs leaving Canada are coming to Indiana for $14/hr.
GM new hires make $14/hour and their health care is being eviscerated.
The dollar must be destroyed so these cheaply manufactured autos and machines can be exported to the rest of the world competitively.
It's a race to the bottom...poverty level wages to maximize shareholder profits and executive bonuses and a sinking dollar to boost exports.
It's not called 'class war' for nothing. I'm hoping for strategic fighting instead of all out scorched earth.
Ever since the 2008 meltdown the Fed has applied measures that would remedy a lack of liquidity (money) and has done nothing to remedy the lack of confidence and regulations that has been the crux of the problem.
There has never been a lack of money, just a lack of confidence and regulations that would direct the money to being used for things that would benefit the 99%. The Feds remedies to date have benefitted the 1% at the expense of the 99%.
Is that 10 per cent surprising? I mean home values have receded to a far greater extent, banks are paying 1% (at most) on certificates of deposit, wages are flat for much of the 99% (if they have jobs), AND Social Security/Medicare ARE on the cutting table. Oh, and don't forget to add the diminished (ncessary) government services to the mix, thanks to all those Disaster Capitalism recipes now served on our own Homeland Security menu.
It's ALL a crime. But with the press beholden to the very owners who either frame matters to SEEM like other than what they are, or otherwise outright lie; and with politics an obscene, self-evident pay per view, and with courts about as legally balanced as the Supremes, and protests being watched by thugs in uniform... the venues of redress are slim. Still, as more and more once comfortable citizens find themselves inside the pot slowing coming to a boil, our streets will erupt with something that makes OWS look like a Sunday picnic.
Where are you getting this from? From some nutcase fringe source? The fed just set a target inflation rate of 2% which is in the optimal 2-3% range. As far as the increase in money supply, increasing the money supply does not cause inflation, increasing demand does. There is room in a recession to increase money supply without cuasing inflation. The plan has been to remove the excess money from the economy once the recession is over to avoid over inflation.
Sorry, but increased demand causing inflation is just flat-out wrong. It is precisely the increase in the supply of worthless dollars into the economy that is the cause of inflation, the same effect that counterfeit currency creates: too many dollars chasing too little value.
Imagine a goldsmith giving out receipts for gold stored in his vault. If he is honest, the receipts represent the gold on deposit. People might therefore use the receipts as "money", trading the receipts instead of the gold Should the goldsmith cheat and print up more receipts than he has gold, each valid receipt is diminished in actual value by the fake ones. That is what inflation is. The consequential price rise to equalize the loss in value of the valid receipts is the function of too many receipts chasing the diminished value of the valid receipts. The increase in demand that results in higher prices being charged is called price gouging, not inflation.
Good article! When I read it I can't help but look at what I learned today to my everlasting sorrow after returning home from a session with my tax preparer who had apparently put a particular entry into a computer which said my tax to the Internal Revenue would be lower than I now virtually know it will be. I had done a run through on my taxes on my own before going in to be helpful. But the way I wrote this up may have led to the preparer to put in an error in the computer. Out comes this "wonderful surprise" of lower taxes than I thought which now is apparently very wrong. I will be paying a good bit more. But then I look at it this way. Some will be paying much less. Hey, they have their president in the White House not myself and the 99%. We can now look for other options. I intend to do just that. No ton of scare tactics will deter me from actually supporting for president which ever candidate will stand up for me and the 99% no matter what. I've had it with this insanity. I shouldn't have to pay as much as I do. No one in the USA should be homeless, without a decent living standard, nor anyone as Tom Dobb said in his part in the film on the 13 colonies' fight for independence "be treated like a dog in the dirt." Yes I've seen way too much of that. Thank you!
Enough! I've really had enough of this and of foreign policy of endless war and all that goes with it.
I'd only wish I could be in Norman Solomon's district to support him. But if I were I sure wouldn't turn around after that good vote and back this president. Please! I have more respect for Solomon and myself as well. He and I both deserve better than that.
The speculative wall street economy thrives on zero percent interest rates.
Since there's no regulatory agency stepping forward to enforce the laws then the only thing that can stop wall street's dangerous and unproductive gambling is higher interest rates.
Additionally, savers are getting creamed. I read that $400 billion dollars in interest income is being lost yearly due to savings, money market accounts and CDs paying virtually no interest.
The flip side is the mortgage rates will rise along with other forms of debt.
There's no simple solution which will please everyone.
Correct. No solution will please all. As I see it, allowing everyone to have a real chance of finding a job is the most important point. Those with savings who are getting poor returns are generally better off than those with no work.
Always normalizing the status quo, right Greg? You might as well sing that song, "And everything's... gonna be okay." As so much sinks into an inescapable quagmire.
Not only are "those with savings" (getting 1%, taxed at 25%) not spending the money needed to create jobs, millions of them are delaying or cancelling retirement, thereby eliminating millions of potential job opportunities for the unemployed.
When Obama guts Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other "domestic programs" after the 2012 election millions of additional older workers will delay or cancel retirement, further diminsihing the number of job opportunities for young Americans who are already experiencing the highest unemployment rate of any age group.
As an eloquent lady at the last GA I attended (who is working two jobs) said: We have enough jobs, we don't need more jobs, we need our country back [from the 1%].
Occupy everywhere. One world, one revolution.
"...President Obama has accepted way too much of the rightwing narrative..."
I'm afraid that Obama *is* the right-wing narrative, with the protestations of Republicans just noise to keep up the pretense that there actually are two different parties in America.
"bugmenot"
Don't be "afraid" of the truth you have written.
An egghead economist, Weisbrot, says we should have government spend more now to create jobs and demand. Clint Eastwood, America's finest he-man actor, says to cut government spending now. This is what you call a "Mexican stand-off." I see no way to decide who is correct, but I wouldn't want to get on Clint's bad side, so I know where I stand. Go ahead. Make my day all you tax and spend limp-wristed commies. Oh, and by the way, God is on MY side.
And Greg's idea of a balanced world-view or arbitration process would see equal concessions made to rapists and rape victims. Gosh, what a fair and balanced kind'a guy. Guess it's not yet time for him to assume the role of the GM-seed farmer. Much warmer inside where you can plant the memes that reliably keep a population docile, bewildered, and bamboozled. The pay's probably better, too.
Show me the pie chart.
Trylon
"lanista"
How could Obama Disappoint?
He is a part of a machine which is doing the task it was designed to do.
He is maintaining the illusion for his bosses and I definitely believe that he will find a way to make this budget more predatory.
I'm not disappointed because the man has (as is true of the vast majority of US voters) repeatedly shown a disdain for human frailty and I do not expect him to change his ways. I do not think the possibility is in him.
I certainly wish he would be behave in a decent or responsible manner, but I do not have any expectations that he (or his supporters and his republican colleagues) will.
I cannot redeem him and I will avoid giving him (and his supporters) the chance to further deceive.
I cannot change him into what I would rather he be
because I am only human.
The true Unemployment rate is above 20%.
The Labor Participation rate is around 62-63%. that measures how many people 18-65 who are actually working.
Around 5% of that age group are officially Disabled. Add in the % of people who don't want to work and the difference is the true Unemployment rate.
And that Participation rate includes part timers.
Obama is more concerned about his $250k 1/2 hour speeches and doing the bare minimum to win reelection than he is about We the People or democracy.
The author has blinders on.
Obama budget combines austerity and phony populism:
The budget for fiscal year 2013 proposed by the Obama White House Monday is a thoroughly cynical exercise. It calls for hundreds of billions of dollars in social spending cuts, further devastating public services and the living standards of working people.
This is combined with populist demagogy about taxing the rich, although the administration knows full well that no such measures will pass either the Republican-controlled House of Representatives or the Democratic-controlled Senate.
...The largest cutback will be $360 billion over ten years from Medicare and Medicaid, mainly through reducing payments to health care providers, which will have the effect of further reducing the number of hospitals and doctors willing to treat patients on either government program. This cut is particularly pernicious because the Obama healthcare reform program calls for extending Medicaid to tens of millions of additional people in 2014, which will require more and not less funding to cover the cost.
...Equally fraudulent is the claim that military spending will be reduced by $850 billion over ten years, because of the end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is no reason to believe that the vast US outlays in Afghanistan will end in 2014, as the White House projects. And while US troops have been withdrawn from Iraq, they are being repositioned for future wars against Syria, Iran and other targets in the oil-rich Middle East and Central Asia, and ultimately against major powers like Russia and China...
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/feb2012/budg-f14.shtml
KRADEK: Thank you for the intelligent post and not masking the truth the way so many do, either to pad their psyches against the slings and arrows of so much outrageous (politically-devised) fortune, or because their salaries depend upon the currency of dis-information. I've noticed your insights in other threads, and appreciate your nakedly-honest, no holes barred perspectives.
I do my best to bring a different perspective to the debate.Many of my posts are a cut and paste job from these guys:
wsws.org
http://leninology.blogspot.com/
Kradek has it right!! Austerity and phoney populism is all Obama offers. Is this enough for you? Why can't the Democrats offer to bring back progressive taxing and the New Deal?
The creeps the Republicans are putting forward may be enough for many Democrats to say, "Oh, I have to stick with Obama!!' But can't we ask for just a bit more than the lesser evil? Can't we vote for something we want instead of fearing it may get worse if we don't stick with Obama? Can't we at least have a primary candidate run against Obama and let us hear some ideas of how our government can be BETTER, instead of not worse? How about a candidate that says, "End the wars, tax the rich, care for the people and protect the environment"? Wow!! That sounds a lot better than austerity to me.
"Disappointing."
Ah yes, there's that word again...and again, and again...
Obama's budget is not disappointing, it's an outrageous Republican budget through and through.
It weakens the Social Security system with the payroll tax cut to buy votes in an election year. It directly cuts Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. It even cuts heating assistance for the poor.
It continues military madness.
It proposes a minor tax adjustment for the super-rich that will be compromised down to nothing, unless they figure out ways to turn it in to more tax credits for the rich.
Please spare us liberal tears and disappointments.
Had Bush proposed this monstrosity, then those "progressives" who STILL are apologists for Obama, would have been rightfully outraged. But those same "progressives" seem to be completely unaware, that they now support someone far to the right of Ronald Reagan, and in many ways, to the right of George W. Bush.
In short, they have become right wingers themselves.
From the WSWS http://www.wsws.org The full article can be read here:
http://wsws.org/articles/2012/feb2012/budg-f14.shtml
Obama budget combines austerity and phony populism
By Patrick Martin
14 February 2012
The budget for fiscal year 2013 proposed by the Obama White House Monday is a thoroughly cynical exercise. It calls for hundreds of billions of dollars in social spending cuts, further devastating public services and the living standards of working people.
This is combined with populist demagogy about taxing the rich, although the administration knows full well that no such measures will pass either the Republican-controlled House of Representatives or the Democratic-controlled Senate.
The budget incorporates $1 trillion over ten years in cuts to domestic social spending already agreed on with congressional Republicans in last year’s negotiations over raising the federal debt ceiling. To these cuts will be added a total of $638 billion in social spending cuts.
Relatively few details leaked out over the weekend, and a preview document issued by the White House Friday listed only the programs that would receive spending increases, not those being slashed, for which only vague generalities were available.
The largest cutback will be $360 billion over ten years from Medicare and Medicaid, mainly through reducing payments to health care providers, which will have the effect of further reducing the number of hospitals and doctors willing to treat patients on either government program. This cut is particularly pernicious because the Obama healthcare reform program calls for extending Medicaid to tens of millions of additional people in 2014, which will require more and not less funding to cover the cost.
Another $278 billion over ten years will be cut from non-health domestic programs, particularly farm programs, pension plans for federal workers, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which insures private pension funds, and the Postal Service, which is to phase out Saturday delivery and close hundreds of smaller post offices.
The cut in funding for the PBGC comes under conditions where large corporate employers like American Airlines are proposing to dump their pension plans on the government insurance program, which is already facing a huge deficit. This will mean that tens of thousands of workers will receive much less than they expect, or nothing at all, when they retire.
According to one press account, the agencies whose budgets are effectively frozen for the coming year include the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Indian Health Service, Head Start and the National Institutes of Health.
...
In a similar vein, Obama followed the official release of the budget Monday morning with a speech before a student audience at the Northern Virginia Community College campus in suburban Annandale, where he pledged to increase taxes on the wealthy while making more financial aid and job training available to college-age youth.
The budget document does indeed propose a series of tax increases on business and the wealthy: $61 billion over ten years on the largest banks, $41 billion over ten years by eliminating tax breaks for oil, gas and coal companies, an unspecified amount from the so-called Buffett rule, which would set a minimum income tax rate of 30 percent for wealthy individuals. By adding in the expiration of the Bush administration tax cuts for the wealthy, White House officials came up with a total of $1.5 trillion in tax increases.
This figure, however, is entirely phony, since the lesser tax increase will never pass through Congress, and the expiration of the Bush tax cuts does not take place until December 31, 2012, long after the beginning of the 2013 fiscal year, and nearly two months after the presidential and congressional elections.
Equally fraudulent is the claim that military spending will be reduced by $850 billion over ten years, because of the end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is no reason to believe that the vast US outlays in Afghanistan will end in 2014, as the White House projects. And while US troops have been withdrawn from Iraq, they are being repositioned for future wars against Syria, Iran and other targets in the oil-rich Middle East and Central Asia, and ultimately against major powers like Russia and China.
The budget also assumes that Congress adopts in full the remaining elements of Obama’s American Jobs Act. This would include a total of $350 billion in stimulus spending, including a one-year extension of the payroll tax cut, a one-year extension of extended unemployment benefits, a $50 billion infrastructure program, a $30 billion program to modernize school buildings, and a $30 billion program to help states hire additional teachers, firefighters and policemen.
Other than the payroll tax extension, which House Republican leaders support as a means of further defunding Social Security and Medicare, there is little reason to believe that any of these proposals will be adopted. The White House proposed them last fall as an exercise in election-year demagogy.
...
The staggering rise in total federal debt, from $5 trillion when Bush took office to some $10 trillion when Obama entered the White House, and now approaching $15 trillion, is a demonstration of the colossal scale of the plundering of the US economy and the US Treasury by the super-rich. Both Obama and his Republican opponents agree that the price for the bankruptcy of American capitalism must be exacted from working people, through the destruction of jobs, living standards and social programs.
In his speech Monday to a student audience, Obama made the usual invocations of “shared responsibility” and equal sacrifice, including his now-standard example of how billionaire Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.
But Obama’s top campaign aides are saying something very different when behind closed doors with a Wall Street audience. According to a report by Bloomberg News, Jim Messina, manager of Obama’s reelection campaign, “assured a group of Democratic donors from the financial services industry that Obama won’t demonize Wall Street.”
One paragraph in, and I couldn't bear to read the rest. Weisbrot cites Obama's "proposal" to raise taxes on those earning 250,000 a year, as an example of something "interesting", as if he is unaware, that Obama has held that carrot out before, and has zero intention of making it happen. Obama is among other things nefarious, the Consummate Con Man.
Yeah, right. Blame Obama for everything. If he would hold a gun to the republican's heads, they might go for this. That damn weak ass Obama.
You are a blind fool.
Yeah, sure. It's Obama's fault that a few asshole democrats stood in opposition here and there with the republicans. Everything is Obama's fault. No fault to republicans. No fault to stupid voters. No fault to the Supremes for making things even less democratic. I could go on, but why not keep it simple and blame Obama for everything.
Oh, yeah. Obama is running up the debt by giving all those unemployed folks more 'welfare' extensions. And he's even giving out more food stamp. Oh, yeah. He's the 'food stamp president' alright. He's divided the country. Yes, by God. Why didn't he always and immediately cave to every republican proposal instead of just some of them. He's a 'divider' alright. Since we're all disappointed by the HC bill, then why not pretend it gives less care to fewer people at greater cost. To hell with facts when we're angry. It seems to me we're pretty much down to one war with the countdown to the end started on the other war. Equating another war ("one of his own") to Iraq and Afghanistan is kinda underwhelming in my simple view of things.
While the SS tax cuts are mildly troubling, the trust fund is being fully funded from the general fund by LAW. The cuts are putting cash in hand to many who truly need it. More cash in circulation by those who do need it will increase demand and help job creation. This will ultimately help the general fund with increased employment bringing in more dollars to the government. This is a no-brainer.
Where does the money come from to "fully fund the trust fund"? Answer: It is coming out of "general revenues" (aka the income tax for the most part). So we are taxing those paying income tax to help pay for the loss of income to the Social Security trust fund (and the fund that funds Medicare). The great majority of Americans can do "math". Only a very small minority (like myself) can actually "use math" to determine the truth of the issue. Or in other words, "There Is No Such Thing As `Free Lunch'." What we have here is a "tax transfer", nothing else. And since "general revenues" are less than "current spending", we are increasing the "deficit". This is like trying to maintain your standard of living by using your credit card to make up the difference between what you earn and what you are spending! Obviously this state of affairs cannot continue forever. Eventually "the bill comes due". Or to be more realistic, the "service charge" (interest) will continue to mount so that the next generation will have to pay more taxes to those who "own" the deficit in the form of Treasury notes as interest on the debt. Effectively we are heading to the same place as Greece is now. We're a bigger country, with a powerful military, so it is possible we'll be able to continue to do this for some time until no one is willing to loan us any more money unless we can take it from them by force. Then we will have to "print dollars" which will of course make the value of these dollars decline until the dollar becomes eventually worthless. This is what happened in Germany after WW1. Do we want to go there...?
"So we are taxing those paying income tax to help pay for..." EVERYTHING ON WHICH GOVERNMENT SPENDS MONEY. Please do yourself a favor and actually learn something about economics and especially macro.
You can actually save more money by elimination of prescription laws. Without prescription laws you don't need a doctor any more to take care of your own health. For those with high blood pressure and high cholesterol, Walmart will sell you the drugs (generic) to control both these conditions for $20 for three months supply. So for $80 a year you are in control of your blood pressure and cholesterol. No doctor needed. So the doctor, seeing those far more empty waiting rooms, is going to start getting his fees down (like any businessman competing for customers). That expensive medical education really doesn't qualify you for much of anything else, so the doctors are pretty much stuck. You do need to study things a bit, but anyone with a computer and internet access along with a public library card can learn all they need to know. For the more "exotic" stuff you'll still need to see a doctor, but the majority of office visits happen only because the doctor (and the insurance company) want to make money. Additionally, hospitals today charge far in excess of their actual costs because they have to pay for all the high tech equipment that only a few people really need to use. Without being able to pass these costs on to everyone, there would be a lot less of this expensive high tech equipment around and hospital room rates would be somewhere around what it costs to stay in a luxury hotel somewhere. A few hundred dollars a day certainly would cover the cost of the actual services provided. And if we are content with the drugs and technology we have now, we could cut the cost of health care at least in half. What people forget is that there are no "immortals" walking around. We're all going to die of something. And if you "doctor" a whole lot to live as long as possible, you'll end up dying in some nursing home bed after exhausting all your assets and wishing you had the means to end your life!
I don't know how "sincere" Obama is with his budget proposals. But you make what should be an obvious point, Greg: even the most progressive, enlightened, socialist budget proposal that a president could devise would be DOA as long as right wing Repubs (mostly) and Dems (to some extent) control Congress.
Congress passes budgets and allocates funds, not the President. All the Pres can do is try to bully-pulpit and strong-arm the Congress into action. And unfortunately, the masses of this nation aren't exactly banging down the doors of Congress with pitchforks to demand more progressive budgets -- in spite of the admirable enthusiasm of people like those who frequent this website and show up at OWS.
In short, a President only has so much power to do so much on his/her own, in terms of the federal budget. The rest is up to the people to either send a message via their elected representatives, or not. Mostly, for whatever reasons, people have chosen not to. Or, as in 2010, they chose to elect tea-partiers.
I'm not very enthused about Obama's performance. But I'm less enthused about the general public failing to pay enough attention and speak out loud enough to make Congress sit up and listen to anyone besides the 1%.
Our perspectives on this are quite similar. Sometimes it seems detestable to endlessly apologize for Obama, but there is no other rational choice.