Obama Offers Plan To Cut $4 Trillion From Deficit In 12 Years

President Obama discusses his plan for deficit reduction today at George Washington University (AP)

President Obama outlined his plan for deficit reduction today, calling for $4 trillion to be cut over 12 years, with spending cuts and tax increases. And he blasted the Republicans' deficit-reduction plans (Rep. Paul Ryan's "Path to Prosperity") which include tax breaks to the rich and corporations, "In the last decade, the average income of the bottom 90 percent of all working Americans actually declined. Meanwhile, the top 1 percent saw their income rise by an average of more than a quarter of a million dollars each. That’s who needs to pay less taxes? They want to give people like me a $200,000 tax cut that’s paid for by asking 33 seniors to each pay $6,000 more in health costs. That’s not right, and that’s not going to happen as long as I’m president."

Obama's plan involves "keeping domestic spending low; cuts to the Pentagon budget; health care savings in Medicare and Medicaid; and taxes." According to CNN, "The president claimed that by building on or adjusting the health care reform bill passed last year, $480 billion would be saved by 2023, followed by an additional $1 trillion in the following decade. For example, he proposed tightly constraining the growth in Medicare costs starting in 2018." Additionally, Obama wants to create a "debt fail-safe," which Politico reports, "would affect both spending and revenues if deficits don’t drop to an average of 2.8 percent of gross domestic product by the end of the decade. The automatic spending cuts would be fairly straightforward, but White House officials conceded that adjusting tax laws automatically would be more complex."

The president said, "Doing nothing on the deficit is just not an option... "our debt has grown so large that we could do real damage to the economy if we don't begin a process now to get our fiscal house in order." Naturally, Republicans like their plan better while Nobel Prize winner and sometime Obama critic Paul Krugman cooed, "Much better than many of us feared. Hardly any Bowles-Simpson — yay!"

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By Jen Chung in News on April 13, 2011 6:33 PM

Comments [rss]

thinprep

All you young liberals out there, who are enjoying the city life on your parent's dime.... when you actually start working and paying taxes, your views will change. Unless of course, you end up being unemployed and collect all these entitlements, then I guess you will continue to love Obama.

cmdrogogov

... get off my lawn?

unretrofiedforu

O, my favorite. The old person argument.

We get it. Conservatism is a wonderful way to say "I love the status quo because I'm getting something out of it".

When there is no more middle class. When there are no more 'parents providing dimes to their kids'. When the taxes are too much for literally no services because the rich no longer pay taxes.

Finally, when there's no more JOBS - for the parents and the children, and the children's children, and the children's children's children.

What does it matter then?

Mordicai

The weird thing about ad hominem attacks is that when you do it anonymously on the internet you sound like an idiot, because you have no idea who you are addressing.

JesseCal

Obama is a liar- a socialist Negro who's bee indoctrinated and believes the Rev. Wright anti-American nonsense that is given the official-sounding name: 'Liberation Theology'. . . and these guys are Millionaires!!

The Obama crowd is working to bring down the American Free Enterprise system- and kill American initiative. . . that which made our Country great!! after all, why strive to achieve financial success- if your personal gains are 'TAXED' out of your hands?! 'The more fortunate among us. . .' is misleading inasmuch as it suggests that successful people have NOT earned their wealth- rather have some how been lucky in achieving their success. . . this is utter bullshit!

I don't think America will survive a second term for Obama-
Save our American Republic- and vote Republican in 2012!!!

cmdrogogov

That's absolutely hilarious, you've managed to conflate a faulty understanding of the way government and taxes work with a comic-book version of basic economics and jumped straight in with a racial slur!

Awesome!

JesseCal

"I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public
debt as the
greatest of dangers. To preserve our independence, we must not let our
rulers load us with perpetual debt."
Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826

JesseCal

Hey- Let's get this straight- I: '. . .jumped straight in with a racial
slur. . .' at the outset of my comments- if 'Negro' is a racial slur! OK,
how about: 'Non-Caucasian'?!
(God bless the wrong Rev Wright!)

Conflate? Does that have to do with 'flatulation'. . . as in when
someone eats too much 'Corn'?!? 'Government & Taxes'. . . work??! And which
comic book? 'Captain America'? (Oh where IS he- when we really need him?!)

Nevertheless- I am gratified that you find my comments at once: 'hilarious
and awesome'?! (OH yeah!) J~

cmdrogogov

It's disappointing not to see some aggressive cuts in 'defense' spending.

Politburo

Actually, doing nothing might be one of the best plans, as that would mean letting all of the Bush tax cuts expire.

LazyNanny

What a bunch of useless drivel - his "plan" is one tired cliche after another. His health care reform plan is already a faintly disguised massive tax increase.
This government is the biggest Ponzi scheme ever. Mark my words, the inevitable collapse will propel us back to the dark ages.

unretrofiedforu

Mark MY words - when America's inevitable collapse is recorded in the history books, you and people who share your view will be blamed for the fall of the greatest country in the world.

cmdrogogov

wrong on all three counts.

xXxMExXx

I’m so proud of this guy. I knew he was going to be a horrible leader.

randomtransplant

In what way is the country worse off than it was in November 2008?

If you care enough about your country espouse pride, couldn't you at least quantify 'horrible leader'?

MermaidFornicator

we are now fighting a 3rd war thanks to the nobel peace prize winner.

randomtransplant

We've engaged with our allies in a limited support campaign which is following through on the principles we espoused during our last two wars, as well as the principles of said Peace Prize.

The difference is incomparably vast & our exposure has been mitigated to an extent Bush didn't even pretended to aim for.

If you can't tell the difference between Libya and a sustained quagmire of a shooting war under false pretenses which degrades our diplomatic credibility with the rest of the world you should lean more post less. (I'm not saying it can't get to that point, but it hasn't started out that way).

MermaidFornicator

what should i lean against?

cmdrogogov

certainly not your weak and erroneous argument...you might fall and hurt yourself.

MermaidFornicator

if you are going to resort to attacking my intelligence in your blind defense of your savior the least you can do is avoid making basic grammatical mistakes in your responses. spell check won't catch those for you.

but it doesn't matter how much you try to insult me, your question was how are we worse off & i answered it. you can play semantics & call it a "limited support campaign" all you want but we are in a 3rd war & everyone knows it.