Obama now proposes spending freeze!

[flarendep1]

If this isn't like rearanging the deck chairs on the Titanic.


Governing now by the polls since the Boston TeaParty crushed his healthcare.

This is like putting a band aid on a shark bite. People see right through this farce.



Obama to propose freeze on government spending

By Lori Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 26, 2010; A01



Under mounting pressure to rein in mammoth budget deficits, President Obama will propose in his State of the Union address a three-year freeze on federal funding that is not related to national security, a concession to public concern about government spending that could dramatically curtail Obama's legislative ambitions.

The freeze would take effect in October and limit the overall budget for agencies other than the military, veterans affairs, homeland security and certain international programs to $447 billion a year for the remainder of Obama's first term, senior administration officials said Monday, imposing sharp limits on his ability to begin initiatives in education, the environment and other areas of domestic policy.

Although the freeze would shave no more than $15 billion off next year's budget -- barely denting a deficit projected to exceed $1 trillion for the third year in a row -- White House officials said it could save significantly more during the next decade. They described the freeze as a critical component of a broader deficit-reduction campaign intended to restore confidence in Obama's ability to control the excesses of Washington and the most lavish aspirations of his own administration.

"You can't afford to do everything that you might have always wanted to do. That's the decision-making process that the president and the economic team went through," said a senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe the speech the president will deliver on Wednesday night. "We're not here to tell you that we've solved the deficit. But you have to take steps to control spending."

The announcement comes less than a week after Massachusetts voters sent shock waves through the Democratic establishment by handing Republicans a crucial 41st seat in the Senate, endangering Obama's agenda and fueling GOP attacks on Obama's stewardship of the budget and the economy. After spending much of his first year in office pursuing expensive initiatives such as a far-reaching overhaul of the health-care system, Obama has pledged to devote much of the next year to reducing record budget deficits, which have forced the Treasury Department to increase borrowing, driving the accumulated national debt toward levels not seen since World War II.

The spending freeze would affect only about one-eighth of the nation's $3.5 trillion budget, the bulk of which is devoted to entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which are responsible for much of the future increase in spending. It would not restrain funding for the $787 billion economic stimulus package Obama pushed through Congress early last year, nor would it apply to a new bill aimed at creating jobs, which Democrats have identified as their top priority in the run-up to November's congressional elections.

The House has approved a $156 billion package intended to lower the nation's 10 percent unemployment rate, while the Senate is drafting an $80 billion package that includes tax cuts for businesses that hire new employees as well as aid for cash-strapped state governments and the unemployed.

It is also unlikely to affect the approximately $900 billion health-care bill, which has been on life-support since the Massachusetts vote. In an interview with ABC News on Monday, Obama vowed to press ahead with health care and other first-year agenda items, even it means jeopardizing his reelection chances in 2012.

"I'd rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president," Dont worry you will be one term! he said in the interview, according to an excerpt posted on ABC's Web site.

Obama also defended his top economic advisers in the interview, saying Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and White House economic adviser Lawrence H. Summers have provided "sound, steady economic leadership" and are likely to stay with the administration despite rumors to the contrary.

Obama's commitment to cutting deficits will be an important theme of his address to Congress, administration officials said, and will be fully detailed in the budget he is due to submit to lawmakers early next week. Administration officials have declined to say specifically how the president plans to reduce deficits projected to add more than $9 trillion to the national debt during the next decade. But he has endorsed several measures aimed at meeting that goal, including the adoption of stringent pay-as-you-go budget rules that would bar lawmakers from passing programs that increase deficits and the creation of a bipartisan commission to work toward a balanced budget.

The Senate is scheduled to vote Tuesday on a plan to create a budget commission, though supporters say they lack the 60 votes needed for adoption. Obama has told lawmakers that if the measure fails, he will issue an executive order creating such a task force with broad power to change the tax code and spending on entitlement programs..

Late Monday, Republicans mocked the idea of a Democratic spending freeze. "Given Washington Democrats' unprecedented spending binge, this is like announcing you're going on a diet after winning a pie-eating contest," said Michael Steel, spokesman for House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).

Democrats, meanwhile, are likely to give the freeze a mixed response. Conservatives, including Sen. Evan Bayh (Ind.) and members of the House Blue Dog Coalition, have been calling for a freeze backed by the threat of a presidential veto. But liberals have resisted freezing spending, particularly on social programs, and are likely to call on Obama to extend any freeze to military programs, aides said.

As a candidate, Obama criticized a spending freeze proposed by his GOP opponent, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, comparing it to "using a hatchet to cut the fed budget. I want to use a scalpel."

Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), a strong proponent of balanced budgets who would have to sell the notion of a freeze to his colleagues, said Obama's proposal is "entirely possible to do." The results of a freeze would be "relatively modest in terms of overall deficit reduction," Conrad said. "But it sends an important signal that everything is on the table."

Discretionary spending -- which unlike entitlement spending is approved annually by Congress -- has risen rapidly over the past decade, by about 7.5 percent a year, according to the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. The most recent spending bills, approved in December, authorized a 4.1 percent increase in total discretionary spending for the fiscal year that began in October and an 8.2 percent increase for federal agencies unrelated to defense.

It was not clear Monday which programs would be most affected by a freeze. Administration officials said Obama would not freeze spending across the board but would increase investments in some agencies while slashing others. For example, Democrats are eager to offer additional help to a struggling middle class.

Administration officials have said that goal would not conflict with deficit-reduction efforts. But the tension between them was on display Monday as Obama rolled out a list of relatively inexpensive initiatives to help middle-class families. Most of them were included in the budget he sent to Congress last year but were never funded, according to Democratic congressional aides.

They include nearly doubling the child- and dependent-care tax credit for families making less than $85,000 a year; limiting a student's federal loan payments to 10 percent of income above his basic living allowance; creating a system of automatic workplace retirement savings accounts; expanding tax credits to match retirement savings; and expanding elder-care help for the "sandwich generation" of baby boomers caring for parents as well as children.

"We're going to keep fighting to rebuild our economy so that hard work is once again rewarded, wages and incomes are once again rising, and the middle class is once again growing," Obama said in unveiling the list at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. "Above all, we're going to keep fighting to renew the American dream and keep it alive -- not just in our time, but for all time."

[Jamaicanman]

1.35 trillion deficit for Obama's budget and all anyone's response is Bush Bush Bush. What was the deficit at the end of Bush's Presidency and what is President Obama's? Answer:Bush came into office with a surplus.

[insidethe8thpol]

He is proposing $15 billion in spending cuts

But he'll outdo that 10 fold with another government program to save Shopping Carts from the junkyard or to kill the Aardvarks in El Paso,TX to stop them from eating red ants

[Deano]

I found this on the web.

On Jan. 10, 2009, former Bush administration adviser Karl Rove wrote in the Washington Post that Democrats "will run up more debt by October than Bush did in eight years. (We checked his claim here.)

David Axelrod, chief adviser to President Barack Obama, fired back on Jan. 15 in Post that Rove had it all wrong and that Bush had been the big spender.

"The day the Bush administration took over from President Bill Clinton in 2001, America enjoyed a $236 billion budget surplus -- with a projected 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion," Axelrod wrote. "When the Bush administration left office, it handed President Obama a $1.3 trillion deficit -- and projected shortfalls of $8 trillion for the next decade."

His point was that it was Bush, not Obama, who got the country in a financial mess. He said Bush approved big-ticket items during his tenure that included tax cuts, a new ************ drug benefit for the elderly, and the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which allowed the government to spend up to $700 billion to shore up troubled assets and bolster various industries.

And now, Axelrod wrote, the Obama administration is stuck with the bill.

We wondered whether Axelrod's numbers were correct.

When we asked for his sources, the White House pointed us to several documents. The first was a 2002 report from the Congressional Budget Office, an independent agency, that reported the 2000 federal budget ended with a $236 billion surplus. So Axelrod was right on that point.

The report provides an interesting trip down memory lane, when budget estimates were downright cheery: "The outlook for the federal budget over the next decade continues to be bright," the report said. "Assuming that current tax and spending policies are maintained, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that mounting federal revenues will continue to outstrip spending and produce growing budget surpluses for the next 10 years."

Yes, the word "bright" was in a budget estimate.

That meant big surpluses -- estimated to total about $5.6 trillion by 2011. So Axelrod was right on that, too.

Another cheery line: "Under current policies, total surpluses would accumulate to an estimated $2 trillion over the next five years and $5.6 trillion over the coming decade, and would be sufficient by 2006 to pay off all publicly held debt that is available for redemption."

The future didn't turn out like that, of course.

On Jan. 7, 2009, two weeks before Obama took office, the CBO reported the deficit was projected to be $1.2 trillion. The 10-year projection was estimated to be about $3.1 trillion. So Axelrod was slightly off on the 2009 deficit (he said $1.3 trillion) but substantially off on the 10-year projection (he said $8 trillion).

The White House said Axelrod's number was based on a budget overview published by the Obama administration shortly after Obama took office, when the 2009 deficit was estimated to be $1.5 trillion, totaling about $9 trillion over the next decade. The White House explained that the figure included the $787 billion economic stimulus package. But because Bush was not president when it was approved, they subtracted the appropriate portion of it for each year, to get $1.3 trillion and $8 trillion, respectively, that the Obama White House believed was approved under Bush.

Why the $5 trillion difference between the White House and the CBO's projections?

Josh Gordon, policy director for the Concord Coalition, said it has to do with fundamental approaches in how the two offices estimate the future. The CBO based its projections on the assumption that the Bush tax cuts would expire in 2010 and that a patch to fix the alternative minimum tax would expire, among other things. The White House does not; instead, it assumes that nothing changes in current law.

Gordon and another budget expert we spoke with, Brian Riedl of the conservative Heritage Foundation, said they believe the White House approach is more realistic because it assumes current policy will continue.

"I think the president is correct to make the shift," said Riedl. "What current policy looks like makes more sense."

(However, Riedl disagrees with Axelrod's larger point, that Bush deserves the blame for the big deficit. "I'd argue that some of the TARP should be assigned to Obama," he said. There are only three parts of TARP that are losing money, he said, the auto company bailouts, AIG and the home loan program. Most of the auto bailouts and the home loan program were initiated by Obama, he said.)

Back to Axelrod's original claim. His overall point is correct that the government was enjoying a substantial surplus when Bush took office and had a big deficit when he departed.

Specifically, Axelrod is right about the surplus Bush began with, and the projected surplus at that point. Axelrod is very close on the deficit at the end of Bush's presidency, but there are two different ways to measure the 10-year projection when Bush left office. The CBO's estimate is $5 trillion lower than the White House numbers, though economists don't quibble with the White House methodology. So given that discussion, we'll take Axelrod down a notch to Mostly True.

[BigWeiner]

I found this on the web.

On Jan. 10, 2009, former Bush administration adviser Karl Rove wrote in the Washington Post that Democrats "will run up more debt by October than Bush did in eight years. (We checked his claim here.)

David Axelrod, chief adviser to President Barack Obama, fired back on Jan. 15 in Post that Rove had it all wrong and that Bush had been the big spender.

"The day the Bush administration took over from President Bill Clinton in 2001, America enjoyed a $236 billion budget surplus -- with a projected 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion," Axelrod wrote. "When the Bush administration left office, it handed President Obama a $1.3 trillion deficit -- and projected shortfalls of $8 trillion for the next decade."

His point was that it was Bush, not Obama, who got the country in a financial mess. He said Bush approved big-ticket items during his tenure that included tax cuts, a new ************ drug benefit for the elderly, and the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which allowed the government to spend up to $700 billion to shore up troubled assets and bolster various industries.

And now, Axelrod wrote, the Obama administration is stuck with the bill.

We wondered whether Axelrod's numbers were correct.

When we asked for his sources, the White House pointed us to several documents. The first was a 2002 report from the Congressional Budget Office, an independent agency, that reported the 2000 federal budget ended with a $236 billion surplus. So Axelrod was right on that point.

The report provides an interesting trip down memory lane, when budget estimates were downright cheery: "The outlook for the federal budget over the next decade continues to be bright," the report said. "Assuming that current tax and spending policies are maintained, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that mounting federal revenues will continue to outstrip spending and produce growing budget surpluses for the next 10 years."

Yes, the word "bright" was in a budget estimate.

That meant big surpluses -- estimated to total about $5.6 trillion by 2011. So Axelrod was right on that, too.

Another cheery line: "Under current policies, total surpluses would accumulate to an estimated $2 trillion over the next five years and $5.6 trillion over the coming decade, and would be sufficient by 2006 to pay off all publicly held debt that is available for redemption."

The future didn't turn out like that, of course.

On Jan. 7, 2009, two weeks before Obama took office, the CBO reported the deficit was projected to be $1.2 trillion. The 10-year projection was estimated to be about $3.1 trillion. So Axelrod was slightly off on the 2009 deficit (he said $1.3 trillion) but substantially off on the 10-year projection (he said $8 trillion).

The White House said Axelrod's number was based on a budget overview published by the Obama administration shortly after Obama took office, when the 2009 deficit was estimated to be $1.5 trillion, totaling about $9 trillion over the next decade. The White House explained that the figure included the $787 billion economic stimulus package. But because Bush was not president when it was approved, they subtracted the appropriate portion of it for each year, to get $1.3 trillion and $8 trillion, respectively, that the Obama White House believed was approved under Bush.

Why the $5 trillion difference between the White House and the CBO's projections?

Josh Gordon, policy director for the Concord Coalition, said it has to do with fundamental approaches in how the two offices estimate the future. The CBO based its projections on the assumption that the Bush tax cuts would expire in 2010 and that a patch to fix the alternative minimum tax would expire, among other things. The White House does not; instead, it assumes that nothing changes in current law.

Gordon and another budget expert we spoke with, Brian Riedl of the conservative Heritage Foundation, said they believe the White House approach is more realistic because it assumes current policy will continue.

"I think the president is correct to make the shift," said Riedl. "What current policy looks like makes more sense."

(However, Riedl disagrees with Axelrod's larger point, that Bush deserves the blame for the big deficit. "I'd argue that some of the TARP should be assigned to Obama," he said. There are only three parts of TARP that are losing money, he said, the auto company bailouts, AIG and the home loan program. Most of the auto bailouts and the home loan program were initiated by Obama, he said.)

Back to Axelrod's original claim. His overall point is correct that the government was enjoying a substantial surplus when Bush took office and had a big deficit when he departed.

Specifically, Axelrod is right about the surplus Bush began with, and the projected surplus at that point. Axelrod is very close on the deficit at the end of Bush's presidency, but there are two different ways to measure the 10-year projection when Bush left office. The CBO's estimate is $5 trillion lower than the White House numbers, though economists don't quibble with the White House methodology. So given that discussion, we'll take Axelrod down a notch to Mostly True.

They act like the 1.3 trillion he inherited was just gonna stop going up when Obama took office, as if he could just stop spending money on the war, not save the banks and not pump money into the economy. Thanks for another useless thread.

[husker]

this just shows how hard it is to get out of this problem. this freeze only saves 15 billion. you can't just be throwing 100's of billion of dollars at any problem that comes along. i said the same thing about tarp under bush!

[BigWeiner]

this just shows how hard it is to get out of this problem. this freeze only saves 15 billion. you can't just be throwing 100's of billion of dollars at any problem that comes along. i said the same thing about tarp under bush!

I'm not trying to just blame Bush for this, but really this war started this. The Bank situation was screwed up, and it needed to be fixed, no one to blame for that. The Middle East is bankrupting another country.

[Jamaicanman]

Unfunded mandates and entitlement programs are adding to the deficit no?

[flarendep1]

I'm not trying to just blame Bush for this, but really this war started this. The Bank situation was screwed up, and it needed to be fixed, no one to blame for that. The Middle East is bankrupting another country.

And 9/11 started the war that all of Congress voted for.

9/11 was an economic disaster which contributed heavily to the debt rung up during the first Bush years. People always fail to mention that when saying he blew the surplus.

I am not defending his spending cause he fucking spent to much too. Just saying 9/11 killed the economy by around 100 Billion according to many experts.

[Guns]

1.35 trillion deficit for Obama's budget and all anyone's response is Bush Bush Bush. What was the deficit at the end of Bush's Presidency and what is President Obama's? Answer:Bush came into office with a surplus.

You should be happy. The far left is livid with this decision.

[jordanrules23]

They act like the 1.3 trillion he inherited was just gonna stop going up when Obama took office, as if he could just stop spending money on the war, not save the banks and not pump money into the economy. Thanks for another useless thread.

thanks for another stupid ass post......
you prove my daily point ...you dumb ass liberal nazi

[Spark]

thanks for another stupid ass post......
you prove my daily point ...you dumb ass liberal nazi

That is totally unnecessary 23 ...

[Powerplaypicks]

I disagree with Obama sending in more troops!! We need to end the wars!!

[BigWeiner]

thanks for another stupid ass post......
you prove my daily point ...you dumb ass liberal nazi

eat a dick

[BigWeiner]

That is totally unnecessary 23 ...

No biggy Spark, him calling me a nazi just proves how retarded he is. He figured out that there's a higher crime rate in big cities today. It's groundbreaking for him.