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Obama Budget Due Monday as Debate Nears on Raising Debt Ceiling
By Tom Diemer - Politics DailyIt's crunch time. With deficit hawks hovering, President Obama will offer his 2012 budget Monday, a spending package likely to include enough cuts to offend liberals, but not enough to mollify conservatives. But that's just an opener. House Republicans, facing an early March deadline to finish business on the current budget, are also feeling the heat -- both from tea party activists and from penny pinchers among the broader membership. A proposal unveiled Wednesday to trim as little as $35 billion or as much as $74 billion -- depending on whose baseline you use -- was met with scorn by ...
Obama's SOTU Bargain: Cut Government to Do More With Government
By David Corn - Politics DailyIs President Obama a fierce down-sizer of government, or an ardent champion of boosting government investment in the economy? Well, he's both. In his second State of the Union speech, delivered Tuesday night, Obama trotted the tight wire. To show he's a mighty crusader against deficits, he declared he would impose a five-year freeze on non-security discretionary spending. And to show he's (still) the rescuer of the U.S. economy, he proclaimed he wants to spend billions on -- that is, invest in -- innovative technology (such as clean energy), infrastructure (including high-speed rail and ...
Opinion: President's Budget Is a Start, at Least
By not in system - AOL News(Feb. 1) -– The president's budget elevates the issue of fiscal responsibility (good), but fails to achieve it (not good). President Obama proposes spending $3.8 trillion next year and borrowing $1.3 trillion of that. The massive deficits the nation now faces would gradually fall to $706 billion in 2014, before rising back to just over $1 trillion by 2020. Among the larger deficit-reducing proposals in the budget are a three-year nonsecurity discretionary spending freeze, which would save $250 billion over 10 years; a fee on large financial institutions designed to pay back the TARP ...
President Obama Steps to the Right -- and Off a Cliff?
By Mary C. Curtis - Politics DailyLiberal criticism of President Obama's proposed spending freeze will be muted once critics see the details of the plan, according to a top White House official. Those must be some amazing details. The administration's objectives are still to "put people back to work and make sure the economy is growing," Rob Nabors, the deputy director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, said in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday. The freeze is an effort to balance the budget and spend money wisely, he noted. For now, Paul Krugman of The New York Times writes that "depressing ...
Obama's Two Populisms: A Muddy Message?
By David Corn - Politics DailyThere are essentially two types of populism. One slams Big Bidness; the other, Big Guv'mint. These two attacks can be merged, especially when government officials and corporate bigwigs are in cahoots. But often, liberal populists blast away at corporate evildoers (such as Wall Streeters) who screw consumers and exert undue influence on the political system, and conservative populists train their fire on money-wasting public officials who govern for their own sake and exploit their derived-from-the-people power. In recent days, Obama pulled a leftward populist pivot, proposing new taxes and ...
Spending Freeze Could 'Hit the Congress Where It Lives'
By Tamara Lytle - AOL NewsWASHINGTON (Jan. 26) – President Obama's proposal to freeze certain federal spending will have a tiny impact on the nation's deficit but a big one on some citizens who could see cuts to programs they rely on, according to budget experts. Obama wants to hold spending on $447 billion worth of domestic programs level for three years. That means no adjustment for inflation, population growth or demand for the particular service that's being cut. But Obama isn't including entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which take up a big chunk of the budget. And he's ...
Opinion: Spot the Savings, If You Can
By John Merline - AOL News(Jan. 26) – If the old cliché about how "little things mean a lot" holds true in the world of Washington spending, then the Obama administration's plan to freeze some federal spending for three years is a big deal. But that's about the only way this plan could be characterized as a big deal. By every other measure, it's microcosmic. Here are some relevant numbers: First, the share of the budget affected by the freeze is small – just 13 percent, based on Congressional Budget Office data for 2011 (the administration says 17 percent). That's because President Obama has taken most ...
Obama Takes Heat From Left Over Spending Freeze
By Steve Pendlebury - AOL News(Jan. 26) -- A lot of commentators on the left think the three-year spending freeze President Barack Obama will announce in his State of the Union speech is a mistake of historic proportions. The plan is intended to save $250 billion over 10 years and would affect 17 percent of the federal budget, according to administration officials. Military and homeland security spending, international aid and entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare would not be affected. Obama's decision shows "he'll govern like a hybrid of John McCain and Herbert Hoover for the rest of his term to ...
House GOP Pushes Case for Fiscal Responsibility with Call for Spending Freeze
By Mark Impomeni - Politics DailyRepublicans in the House sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) yesterday calling for an across the board federal spending freeze to help rein in the ballooning federal budget deficit. The letter, signed by Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and the entire GOP leadership team, says that freezing spending at last year's levels would help to get the deficit under control while avoiding cuts to vital federal programs. In a statement, Boehner emphasized that a spending freeze would answer President Obama's call for ideas to help bring fiscal responsibility back to the federal ...
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