By JACKIE CALMES
NYT
WASHINGTON — The Congressional Budget Office placed a new hurdle in front of President Obama’s agenda on Friday, calculating that the White House’s tax and spending plans would create deficits totaling $2.3 trillion more than the president’s budget projected for the next decade.
The difference largely reflects the administration’s more optimistic forecasts of economic growth through 2019.
The budget office figures, which will guide Congress as it takes up Mr. Obama’s proposals in earnest next week, were worse than Democratic leaders expected and further complicated their job of achieving the president’s priorities on health care, energy policy and much more.
Moderate Democrats from competitive districts and states have already expressed nervousness about some of Mr. Obama’s plans, especially as Republicans have grown increasingly emboldened to stay on the attack.
(More here.)
WOW !
ReplyDeleteHow can that be ?
Could it be that Obama’s budget ( check out the title : “New Era of Responsibility: Renewing America's Promise” so maybe it isn’t really a budget ) includes : spending on the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, physician reimbursements under Medicare, costs associated with natural disasters, and lost revenues from changes in the alternative minimum tax. … those were items that previously were handled as Supplemental expenditures … a very sloopy and totally inappropriate way to run a business much less a country.
And worst yet, Obama has the audacity to recognize that to Renew America's Promise, health care must be addressed … he could just ignore this (like we have done with Medicare) but instead he has included $630 billion (over ten years) funding for this. And Obama also recognizes the impact to our veterans by increasing veterans’ affairs budget for health-care funding, mental health services, and programs for homeless vets.
So if the budget needs to be cut, how about strong look at the military weaponry component that perpetually has proven to be prone to cost overruns and includes funding for outdated equipment … or the NASA portion as maybe as Bush’s trip to Mars should be put off until the national debt is under control.
Then again, maybe taxes have to be raised. Obama’s plan includes retaining 80% of the Bush tax cuts that are set to expire 2010 … then again, isn’t that part of the problem … the Bush cut taxes instead of properly paying for Iraq and Medicare prescription drugs.
There should be a strong debate ... on where to spend the monies … but not on Obama’s “New Era of Responsibility” .