Democrats Take Knife To Obama's Budget

[steven johnson]

Source: Washington Post

Key Democratic leaders were performing major surgery yesterday on President Obama's first budget plan in an effort to bring skyrocketing annual deficits under control, while preserving the option of enacting some of the president's most significant and costly domestic priorities.

In the budget blueprints they are scheduled to formally unveil today, Democrats in the House and Senate said they plan to cut hundreds of billions of dollars from Obama's spending request over the next five years. They also are scrapping Obama's plan to devote more cash to the financial sector bailout. And they are restoring some of the money-saving budget gimmicks the president said he eliminated last month when he unveiled his $3.6 trillion request for the fiscal year that begins in October.

The moves come as Republicans are pounding Obama for proposing a rapid increase in government spending and taxpayers are voicing anxiety and outrage about the gargantuan sums that Washington is already pouring into the economy and banking system.

Congressional budget leaders were forced to make major revisions to Obama's spending plan in the wake of an analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that found his proposal would force the nation to borrow nearly $9.3 trillion over the next decade -- $2.3 trillion more than his administration had previously estimated using more optimistic economic forecasts. Republicans pounced, accusing Obama of proposing a budget that spends, taxes and borrows too much.



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...

[Thrill]

1. Who needs Republicans when you have Democrats. Never going to get a real Progressive Agenda

with these assholes. Obama proposed the most Aggressive Progressive budget ever. Now they're fucking it up

[depakid]

2. Let's call them "Great Depression II" advocates

Though let's also remember that the OP is the Washington Post- an entity that can't even report a science story without purposefully slanting it.

[Amonester]

3. Let's hope they'll cut a lot of military waste...

Like bringing all our boys 'n girls back home from all the useless, expensive republicon empire all over the world.

What? Nope?

[DUlover2909]

5. Yep. The key is to cut defense spending and make the remaining spending efficient.

[badgervan]

6. Yep...

... also stop the agricultural subsidies and recover all of the offshore tax haven corporate money hidden all over the globe. Combined with pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan, that would more than take care of our biggest problems.

[Lionel Mandrake]

7. Split the DoD in two.

The smaller portion would retain the name "Defense" and be limited to that which is truly defensive.

Most of DoD would be renamed the Department of Aggression and would include, for example, everything relating to the war in Iraq. This new department could be phased out as soon as we decide to stop committing war crimes.

[Hawkeye-X]

4. May I suggest that the Dems start looking at the DoD - there is NO reason

to keep over 90% of the budget. End the wars, and you'll see major shift in policy and monies freed up suddenly. End it, pull out, and let the countries deal with their own problems.

[biopowertoday]

8. ***OH OH---increases in health care are on the chopping block..........

To meet those goals, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said he would leave out new spending for Obama's proposed expansion of health care coverage, a program likely to cost in excess of $1 trillion over the next 10 years, as well as the president's proposal to make permanent an $800 tax credit for working families.

[Are_grits_groceries]

11. MEH!!

Don't those jackasses realize that payments for health care are one of the reasons that businesses have a lot of trouble. Not to mention that just maintenance care is getting beyond people's means.

Where were all these concerned congresspeople when Bush was in office???

MEH!! MEH!! MEH!!

[rpannier]

13. They have health care

They don't give a damn about anyone else

[Jamastiene]

9. We need to find out which Democrats, specifically, are cutting so much

and oust their asses ASAP.

[bobburgster]

10. I agree or...

at least put focused pressure on them.

[rpannier]

12. Using my other wordly powers It's

Evan Bayh, the Nelsons, Mark Pryor, Mary Landrieux, Blanche 'I've Always relied on the kindness of traitors' LIncoln, Joe LIEbarman (even though he's not a member the Vichy Dems love him), Udall, Baucus, Feinstein and Bennett.

[Demeter]

14. The Usual Suspects, In Other Words

Round them up, Claude!