Posted on 04/10/2013 7:30:23 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
As the Senate prepares to produce its first budget since the FY2010 cycle four years ago, Barack Obama will finally submit his own budget proposal — two months late, of course. The last actual normal-order budget passed by Congress spent, according to the White House’s own figures, $3.456 trillion dollars on revenues of only $2.163 trillion. With even the President talking about fiscal discipline and deficit control, we must be seeing some cuts in this budget cycle, no?
No:
President Obama plans Wednesday to unveil a $3.77 trillion spending plan that proposes modest new investments in infrastructure and education, major new taxes for the wealthy and significant reforms aimed at reducing the cost of Social Security and Medicare.
In case you’re keeping score — because the Obama administration clearly isn’t — that’s an increase of 8% over FY2010, which has served as the baseline spending level for all of the continuing resolutions and short-term budget deals that have followed since. That makes the Washington Post’s next paragraph even more ridiculous:
As Washington barrels toward another potential showdown over the federal debt limit later this summer, administration officials said the blueprint lays down the president’s bottom-line offer for getting federal borrowing under control.
Spending more money gets borrowing under control? Even credit-card companies wouldn’t try making that argument. The administration doubled down on this spin, though:
“So this is our sticking point,” the official said. “And the question is: are Republicans going to be willing to come to us to do serious things to reduce our deficits” – including raising taxes on millionaires.
Why not do something actually serious, like reducing spending? What are these “modest new investments,” for instance? We spent nearly a trillion dollars on “modest new investments” in 2009-10, which we still haven’t paid off.
The Post reports that Republicans are laughing this off, much like the last two presidential budget proposals, which couldn’t even win a single Democratic vote in Congress in three floor votes. This is why:
While the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office forecasts $3.6 trillion in outlays in the fiscal year that begins in October, Obama calls for $170 billion more.
And while the CBO forecasts a deficit of $616 billion in 2014, Obama calls for a larger gap between spending and revenues of $744 billion, administration officials said, or 4.4 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product.
The $170 billion increase in spending is exactly twice what the sequester was supposed to cut from next year’s budget. Obama doesn’t want any spending cuts — he only wants more tax hikes, as Politico reports, calling them “revenue”:
His $3.77 trillion proposal would reduce the deficit by $1.8 trillion by adding $580 billion in new taxes on the wealthy, according to senior administration officials. It also includes an estimated $230 billion in savings by reducing cost-of-living adjustments for federal entitlement programs.
But all of those cuts — which White House aides say the president is ready to make — depend on whether Republicans agree to new tax revenues, including requiring people who make $1 million or more to pay at least 30 percent of their income in taxes and limiting deductions for the top 2 percent of earners.
“If they refuse to include revenues in any deal, then there will be no deal. It’s that simple,” a senior administration official said in a briefing call with reporters Tuesday.
Their justification, they say, is simple: Obama won a second term in November, and he’s not interested in negotiating away from the positions he took on the campaign trail to get to it. This is about a plan they say is out to help the middle class by increasing that tax burden on the wealthy.
In other words, Obama wants Republicans to agree to tax hikes today for down-the-road cost savings in entitlement programs that are necessary whether we hike taxes or not. In exchange, he wants to increase spending in most or all other categories.
What a deal! It’s very reminiscent of this one:
He’s called Wimpy for a reason, folks.
Gotta pay for those parties somehow....
“WHEN YOUR OUTGO EXCEEDS YOUR INCOME, YOUR UPKEEP WILL BE YOUR DOWNFALL.” (Paul Harvey)
You know, this is all part of his never ending “PsyOps” against the people and the republicans.
He puts stuff out there, that has no chance of being passed. He knows it wont’ pass. His own democrats won’t even support it. The public has absolutely no idea what the bill, what’s in it, or how disastrous it is. On top of that, he takes no ownership of anything. All he has to say is, “I presented a budget and no one liked it. It’s all their fault”.
But, come prime time, the republicans are the reason it didn’t pass and they are bad.
For all the names he has been called on here, marxist-socialist- etc etc, he’s nothing more than a street hustling, punk. And I mean that with as much effeminacy as possible.
Without budgets like this, the muslim brotherhood would have to do without tear gas canisters, tanks and bullets.
For those interested...
The most controversial item in Obama’s new budget (65 days late) is a plan to cut Social Security benefits via something called a “chained CPI.”
The chained CPI is a way of recalculating the growth of benefits by using an inflation index that doesn’t go up as fast.
Republicans supported this idea during the fiscal cliff negotiations and they said it could be the prelude to a sweeping budget deal that included new revenues.
Boehner pissed away $650 BILLION in new taxes as part of the “fiscal cliff deal”
Now barky is back for the rest of the $1.3 TRILLION in NEW TAXES he has demanded since 2011
This is what “compromise” with Screwtape looks like
Read about that a while back. Figured that it was some sort of gimmick, one that HE proposed, but that it wasn’t very popular with the dem’s.
Obama is speeching right now ,I don’t think he read his budget
Why would he?
This way he can blame the whole debacle on some staffer and once again, not take any blame for anything.
I’m having trouble with the Post’s logic:
“while the CBO forecasts a deficit of $616 billion in 2014, Obama calls for a larger gap between spending and revenues of $744 billion.”
— seems to say that the deficit Obama proposes would be $744 billion, which is higher than CBO’s forecast. Higher. An increase. The Post then goes on to say:
“[Obama’s] proposal would reduce the deficit by $1.8 trillion”
— what am I missing? They just said it would increase the deficit. By $744 billion.
-— And how would it reduce the deficit by $1.8 trillion? Their answer: “. . . by adding $580 billion in new taxes on the wealthy.”
How is $580 billion income going to pay off in $1.8 trillion in deficit reduction? Is the Post leaving out things like “over several years” or “among other revenues”?
Something is definitely failing here: my reading comprehension, their reporting, or their math.
He got his tax hike in January.
He’s determined to put the final nail in the the coffin of the USA
RE: He got his tax hike in January.
Moral of the story... Liberals will never be satisfied with taxing a little. The will always want to tax more until their utopia (which will never materialize) is reached.
January was just the beginning.
RE: This way he can blame the whole debacle on some staffer
Not staffers, REPUBLICANS. Either Bush or someone with an ‘R’ affiliation.
I’m still trying to find the “deficit reduction”. How is spending more than one takes in “deficit reduction”?
RE: How is spending more than one takes in “deficit reduction”?
He’s hoping he can get more money from tax payers to pay for the spending.
In and of itself, that's not bad. It's obvious that SS growth will have to be limited. What's bad is that it's a less honest way of curtailing the growth than making SS benefits taxable for the better off (not that I like that either), and what's worse is that Obama wants to direct the savings from the old to his favored groups--the underclass, the illegals, and the unions.
When Obama talks about investment in infrastructure and education, he's talking about above-market wages paid to contractors and teachers/indoctrinators, not the building of meaning physical or intellectual capital. Who pays for it? The less favored--the "wealthy" and under this proposal, the elderly.
...two months late, of course. The last actual normal-order budget passed by Congress spent, according to the White House’s own figures, $3.456 trillion dollars on revenues of only $2.163 trillion... a $3.77 trillion... major new taxes... reducing... Social Security and Medicare... an increase of 8% over FY2010, which has served as the baseline spending level for all of the continuing resolutions and short-term budget deals that have followed since.
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