Obama wants domestic spending cuts in next budget

[Hannah Bell]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration, mindful of public anxiety over the government's mushrooming debt, is shifting emphasis from big-spending policies to deficit reduction. Domestic agencies have been told to brace for a spending freeze or cuts of up to 5 percent as part of a midterm election-year push to rein in record budget shortfalls.

Yet with the economy still in distress and unemployment pushing past 10 percent, prospects for making a dent in a trillion-dollar-plus annual deficit seem slight. And since the Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs would likely be shielded from such cuts, overtures toward trimming the deficit may hold more symbolic value than substance.

President Barack Obama is expected to make post-recession spending restraint a key theme of his State of the Union address in January and an important element of the budget he submits to Congress a few weeks later. He is under increasing pressure, including from moderate and conservative members of his own party, to show he is serious about tackling a deficit that has become both an economic and political liability...

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Obama-wants-domestic-spending-apf-691348121.html?x=0

[Orwellian_Ghost]

1. Gotta shield

the weapons manufacturers.

[BeHereNow]

17. Bingo. n/t

bhn

[ShortnFiery]

2. 1st = Tax the Rich!!! eom

[salguine]

20. If by "tax" you mean "eat", then I'm with ya.

[DJ13]

3. Obama is expected to make post-recession spending restraint

I think he's being way to premature with that kind of thinking.

FDR screwed up the same way early in the depression and made things worse.

[Stinky The Clown]

8. I agree. He needs to increase spending. Ad when he gets shit from the right ......

Remind them of this:

"Cheney to Treasury: "Deficits don't matter"
Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill was told "deficits don't matter" when he warned of a looming fiscal crisis.

O'Neill, fired in a shakeup of Bush's economic team in December 2002, raised objections to a new round of tax cuts and said the president balked at his more aggressive plan to combat corporate crime after a string of accounting scandals because of opposition from "the corporate crowd," a key constituency.

O'Neill said he tried to warn Vice President Dick Cheney that growing budget deficits-expected to top $500 billion this fiscal year alone-posed a threat to the economy. Cheney cut him off. "You know, Paul, Reagan proved deficits don't matter," he said, according to excerpts. Cheney continued: "We won the midterms (congressional elections). This is our due." A month later, Cheney told the Treasury secretary he was fired.

The vice president's office had no immediate comment, but John Snow, who replaced O'Neill, insisted that deficits "do matter" to the administration.

http://www.ontheissues.org/2004/Dick_Cheney_Budget_+_Economy.htm

[bluestateguy]

11. Any new spending would be paid for

either through cuts to other programs or revenue increases.

[Warpy]

4. What Obama needs are PENTAGON cuts

but he's not going to get them out of this chickenshit Congress.

[anonymous171]

5. If this keeps up, Obama is going to be 1 term president.

He has to appease his base ON SOMETHING instead of wimping out all the time.

[rwheeler31]

16. Give it up. Did you ever blame Bush for deficits?

[peacebird]

6. stop the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, shut Gitmo, save billion$$$!!!

Not to mention saving lives. Their civilians as well as our military.

[FLAprogressive]

7. And THIS is why we're so fucking pissed off! Enough is ENOUGH.

END THE WARS NOW.

[Political Heretic]

9. I expect to see droves of middle/upper class DUers defending the cowardly screwing of the poor

It's an election year, and so its time to screw the poor, people who have the least political voice of any group so that democratic politicians can try to sound like republicans and talk about "fiscal responsibility" - while never once addressing our astronomical and bloated defense budget, or our ludicrous tax system keeps giving tax breaks to the rich and the financial elite so that we can never take in enough revenue to meet basic needs of citizenry.

He's expected to make post-recession spending restraint a key theme - note how spending restraint always, always, always, always means cutting programs and services that poor people need and use. You know what we need to do post recession? Make cuts that don't make poverty harder, and generate increased revenue through responsible taxation.

[JoseGaspar]

15. The Heretic is right.

Burn him at the stake.

[bluestateguy]

10. Let's see what is cut before whining and complaining

nt

[Deja Q]

13. +1,000,000,000,067,004^893

:)

[JoseGaspar]

14. Proof of One.

"Let's wait" is just hand-waving. Name a single instance in the last 60 years (since FDR) in which "budget-cutting" did not fall disproportionately, if not exclusively, on the poor. You might as well declare that screaming while falling off a 40 story building is premature "whining and complaining", because we can't be certain of the outcome.

[Political Heretic]

22. "Might as well declare screaming while falling off a 40 story building is premature"

:rofl:

That's a perfect comparison.

[chimpymustgo]

24. Dayum. Nailed it.

[Political Heretic]

21. "Let's wait and see" is just code for "I don't give a shit."

There has never been a time in the history of politics where budgets balancing has not disproportionately screwed the poor. The only way to change this would be to fundamentally revolutionize our politics and economy.

Is anyone in Washington currently suggesting doing that? No? Then we don't need to "wait and see" to know what will naturally happen. The same thing that always happens. The same thing that must happen, for this system to "function."

[Deja Q]

12. Simple solution:

Why not create proper, middle class-paying, full-time jobs? Tax revenue goes up and the problem is resolved.

[glowing]

18. You know what.. FUCK them all. They should have spent the Wall street money

on Main Street and we would have been all ok.. No, it the rich fuckers that control our world. When are we going to wake up and stop taking it up the ass. Stop fighting their wars, stop losing our homes to their "too big to fail" banks, their ponzi scheme wallstreet... We need more money to be spent domestically and less on wars with NO meaning. Bush ruined soooo much in this country.. We hired Obama to fix it.. to care.. to realize that anti-Bush is what people need and want. Cutting programs and sevices that are already bleeding is not how this country will survive. Is is a civil war they want?

[Kansas Wyatt]

19. Well the Pentagon is in the United States, so I suggest he start there.

That and Corporate Welfare.

[madrchsod]

23. give the people what they want!

millions of teabaggers marched in the streets of washington dc and their message was heard!

power to the people! power to the people!