Obama unveiled his deficit cutting proposal yesterday that was long on partisan demagoguery and short on specifics. In what details were given, there is serious doubt that such proposals genuinely put forth practical solutions to the deficit crisis. Elsewhere, the nebulousness of the president’s “plan” left many wondering whether the administration truly has a firm grasp of the complicated factors contributing to the national debt. At the very least, the president’s short-notice, ill-defined speech on the deficit — one that was filled with more political punches than proposals — shows that the White House is on the defensive, trying desperately to make the case that, contra the united Republican front that has co-opted deficit discourse in Washington, incisive budget cuts are not all they’re cracked up to be.
In unusually harsh language, the president began by railing against the GOP’s plan authored by Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI), saying there was “nothing serious or courageous” about cutting $6.2 trillion of government spending over the next decade. He accused Republicans generally of “paint[ing] a vision of our future that is deeply pessimistic.”
As for his own plan, the president proposed massive tax increases on the “rich,” cuts in defense spending, Medicare and Medicaid “reform,” and closing tax loopholes, while continuing to “invest” in clean energy, education, medical research, and transportation. He would leave Medicare and Medicaid relatively untouched, while claiming that his plan would cut $4 trillion over the next 12 years.
Yet, the president offered no specifics on the cuts he was advocating except broad, unrealistic dollar amounts. For example, the president believes we can realize budget savings by cutting $1 trillion from interest payments on the debt over the next 12 years. But interest rates are near zero now, and it is highly unlikely that they will remain that low for the next 12 years, especially given the fact that inflation is rearing its head. Some analysts are predicting debt service payments to rise from its current $196 billion to a whopping $800 billion by 2016 as a result of rising interest rates.
The president’s Medicare proposal is equally unclear. Obama proposed that the Independent Medicare Advisory Board can keep costs down. The president said he would do this by “chang[ing] the way we pay for health care -– not by the procedure or the number of days spent in a hospital, but with new incentives for doctors and hospitals to prevent injuries and improve results.” Obama clearly believes he can slow the growth of Medicare by strengthening the advisory board, which will recommend the best ways to reduce spending while still providing seniors with adequate care. The president claims that these measures will save an additional $500 billion by 2023. If this number is as real as his $1 trillion in Medicare “savings” to come out of Obamacare — savings that are dubious in the extreme — the result will be little or nothing done about an entitlement program that is going broke and could sink the US economy by itself eventually.
Obama offered no specific cuts in defense beyond savings that would occur in winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a promise to look into more cuts. He will do this by conducting a “fundamental review” of our “role in a changing world” and examine our mission and capabilities. Practically speaking, he will look to reducing our readiness, which is the easiest and least painful part of the military budget to cut, but the one which is the most dangerous to skimp on.
The president’s plan was claimed to have been based loosely on the report issued by his Deficit Reduction Commission, which recommended broad cuts in government programs and smaller tax increases. Both parties rejected the findings of the commission as unrealistic and unworkable.
Perhaps most disturbingly, the president seems to believe he is scarcely culpably for the deficit crisis himself. Obama’s long, misleading narrative on how the deficit was created at the beginning of his Wednesday speech, completely absolved him of any responsibility for the $4.5 trillion in debt his administration has piled on in just two years. At times, it was a surreal performance, as the president talked about problems with the deficit as if his administration’s increase of nearly 40% in federal spending never happened. He placed the entire blame for our fiscal woes on his predecessor — something he has been doing since he was sworn in.
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My impression was All him gazing upward and to one side and saying Tax the rich in as many ways as he could. That's all.
This juvenile has got to go. He's never produced a thing in his short misguided lifetime. Mr President, can you hear that? Kenya is calling, you can go home in 2012.
RIGHT ON!
Wait…i thought he was indonesian?
I think we need to decide soon on who Obama's replacement will be. I think either Huckabee or Christie should be the next President. Newt is a rampaging idealogue and Romney is more like Newt than anyone else. Trump just makes a loud noise. I don't know what Palin really has going for her. What would she do as President? Ron Paul strikes me as a Newt-Trump hybrid. Whos else is there?
Here is our tragedy. We have no visible champs. We need to beat the bushes for the right talent. From what I've seen of Allen West in Florida, he looks much better than all the so-called front-runners. At least he knows exactly who our enemies are.
Lawyers for government offices is a proven disaster..check out the fine lawyer who is your president now. How about some non-politicians like Trump and West ? Trump is a known sucessful businessman and West a military hero of the first order who does indeed know who our real enemies are !!!!!!!!
Trump is the only Republican candidate who is not afraid of Obama and the Radical Left. Please remember, John McCain, a man broken in a Communist Reeducation Camp, was OK as the Prez candidate with the boneheads running the GOP. What else do you need to know about Rove and the rest of the GOP elites/eggheads? BTW, I heard Trump wants Rudy G as his AG and John Bolton as his Sec of State. WOW! P.S. The WSJ Corporatists hate Trump because he’s on record that he’ll put the US Army on the Republic’s southern border. No more slave-wage workers for the US Chamber of Commerce’s members!
It would be helpful for the opposition to define just how many "rich" there are whom obama expects to use to solve the crisis. Surely the IRS can provide those numbers and it would be salutary to keep drumming the fact that the roughly 1% of the population can't carry the other 99% on their backs. We all know that we shouldn't leave guns around where they can be misused by children so why on God's green earth did we leave the economy in the hands of this pitiful president.
I heard: "It wasn't me. It's not my fault. I am the good guy and they are bad."Could he be less specific? Except when he levied charges like "They (Repubs) want a child who needs 24/7 assistance to go it alone." Now who wants that?!? Not a soul in this country wants such a thing. Why does he bother spewing such lies? What truly bothers me is there are folks that still believe him. My hope is that we survive and hold on until 2012.
That's excactly what the right wants in order to maintain a lower tax level for the rich.Corporations make BILLIONS and pay NO taxes, yet we attack teachers , police and firefigthers.
No, that is exactly what the LEFT DOES. Always railing against big business as if increasing their taxes would help you and I. It just can't be. The problem isn't that corporations aren't taxed enough the problem is too much spending! What would be wrong with an across the board flat rate tax for everyone like 25%? Then you shout about Teachers and Police & Firefighters. The same tired and lame story. No one mentions the 8 guys watching one with a shovel or the 4 clerks filing their nails while an intern does the work. Or the fact that teachers only work 180 days a yr. or the police retire w/a full pension after only 20 yrs.! (All local issues by the way). It's always Teachers or police. Give me a break. We're told by the LEFT that we can continue to live off of the taxes levied on "The rich or Big Business" Thatcher said it right "The only problem with Socialism is eventually you run out of other peoples money."
President Obama gave a speech, so of course it was "short on specifics." We all know what the lay of the land is here, in terms of the stark contrast in philosophies of government. Whatever you think of his speech, this is politics: it was the speech of a man who intends to be, and probably will be, re-elected.
Ayn Rand explains why politicians use class demagogy. If an average housewife struggles with her incomprehensibly shrinking budget and sees a rich tycoon in a resplendent limousine, How would she know that , if all the voices she hears demanding he give 50% of his wealth would ruin investment in the economy whenthe Demovrats and the MSM are telling her that we must soak the rich? No one tells her that higher taxes imposed on the rich (and the semi-rich) will not come out of their consumption expenditures, but out of their investment capital (i.e., their savings); that such taxes will mean less investment, i.e., less production, fewer jobs, higher prices for scarcer goods; and that by the time the rich have to lower their standard of living, hers will be gone, along with her savings and her husband’s job—and no power in the world (no economic power) will be able to revive the dead industries (there will be no such power left).
All Obama has to do is convince enough of the voters that there is a free lunch. That is if we eat our wealth.
"When the Rich go poor, who will help the poor?" Steve Chavez
JOE "Gaffy Duck" BIDEN upstaged Obama AGAIN?
Amazing that we're trying to fix Capitalist problems with Socialists and Communists who were brainwashed to love the Old Soviet Union, and their proven failed economic and social system, in their college days! Didn't Obama admit that he "sought out Marxist Professors?" Well, those professors were spitting on our soldiers in the sixties in their hippie days while they sided with the Viet Cong and our Communist Party USA "peace" groups. Those very naive students of the 80's, are the leaders of today and who still listen to their professors of the sixties like Bill Ayers, a sworn enemy and domestic terrorist!
What about Ryan's demagoguery about the deficit? A bi-partisan panel proved that his loser 'strategy' for reducing the budget would gut programs, with the result being a RISE in the deficit in 10 years. So basically, much harm, and no good will come of the so-called 'GOP PLAN'.
I'd love to see the "proof" of this unknown "bipartisan panel. Can you post it? Do you have it? I bet we could run him out of Washington if we had such proof as he ought to be run out if he lied. Now then, if he is telling the truth….
It's know has the gang of 6–3 demo's and 3 repub.
The best showman in the US is Trump, the second best is Obama. They both will be fighting for good press reviews, the winner will be our next president.
Click my name to continue reading this widely linked piece which one commenter called: "the most out of the box, interesting article that I've read on the speech."
But it's working, isn't it?
I've heard a lot of talking, not only at Obama, about "taxing the rich". Unfortunately, the fair tax system is an illusion, there are a lot of multinational corporations that can afford to hire the best lawyers to advise them to pay less and less taxes. As long as the law code is such a complicated labyrinth, out of which only those with high connections can learn to manipulate the system, finding tax breaches the small businesses couldn't possibly use, the economy cannot grow. Maybe what we need is a tax reform and a lot of thinking about fair tax vs flat tax We would definitely, through a flat tax, save billions getting rid of IRS, putting some people would be out of work, it's true… In this model, tax revenues would remain at the today's level.