Obama calls for common ground on budget

[onehandle]

Source: AP

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is urging lawmakers to find common ground on a budget deal to avert a government shutdown and says he's willing to agree to steeper cuts to get there. The president issued a call for compromise Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet address but without offering any specifics on how to bridge the $50 billion gulf that divides the White House and Democratic budget proposal from the much steeper cuts offered by Republicans.

The competing plans are headed for test votes in the Senate in the coming week that neither is expected to survive but that will set the stage for further negotiations. The government is running on a stopgap spending bill that expires March 18, so the parties have until then to come up with a plan to pay for the remainder of the fiscal year through Sept. 30.

"We need to come together, Democrats and Republicans, around a long-term budget that sacrifices wasteful spending without sacrificing the job-creating investments in our future. My administration has already put forward specific cuts that meet congressional Republicans halfway. And I'm prepared to do more," said Obama, although the claim that Democrats are meeting Republicans halfway only stands up under the Democratic explanation of the intricate numbers game being played on Capitol Hill.

"But we'll only finish the job together — by sitting at the same table, working out our differences and finding common ground," the president said.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110305/ap_on_bi_ge/us_obama

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Good luck with that.




_

[xchrom]

1. one has to pause when thinking of what 'common ground' with these republicans means.

[InkAddict]

2. Rhetoric, lies, and burnt popcorn...

[FailureToCommunicate]

3. For Obama it seems to mean this...

(Did he ever take a negotiations class in school? You don't start negotiations by saying you'll give away whatever the other side wants you to...

[ixion]

5. Indeed...

The narrative seems to go like this: The GOP never compromises or finds so-called 'common ground'. The Dems cave in to their wishes and call that 'compromise'.

Actual negotiation never seems to enter into it. The Dems first act is to surrender.

[lark]

7. Exactly!

Obama never had a progressive policy that he wasn't totally willing to undercut and nevr met a Repug demand that he wasn't willing to bend over for. He talks Dem but ultimate actions are always right wing. I'd like to see him show the balls on the showdown issue that Clinton did, but I'd be shocked as hell if he ever actually showed even a semblance of a spine.

[No Elephants]

17. I was almost with you, until the bit about Clinton showing his balls.

[yurbud]

20. it means the ground under our feet and the roof over our heads will taken to comfort the rich

[stillrockin]

4. Right this way to the egress!

[indepat]

6. There is no common ground on the budget: only far right-of-center and extremely

far right. :patriot:

[Marblehead]

8. He does some fancy

speechifying, but no help for us. tax the rich

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

9. "...says he's willing to agree to steeper cuts to get there."

A finer negotiator I've never seen.

[Old Codger]

10. For a While

I thought he was just a slow learner, I now see that assessment is wrong.. He wants the rethugs to like him and seems to be willing to give anything to make that happen... regardless that history shows him to be wrong.

[Zoeisright]

11. There ISN'T ANY common ground.

Repukes want a theocracy, with a rich upper class and everybody else slaves. Period.

[EndElectoral]

12. Captain Capitulation....

[Thor_MN]

13. Conservatives don't do common ground. Everything is all black or all white

No partial answers, no compromise, they are always right and everyone else is wrong. Of course, being faith based, they can ignore any pesky facts and just keep repeating what they feel is right, hypocrisy is stock in trade.

[Plucketeer]

14. The condensed version reads:

"John, how far would you like me to bend down? I want to make you happy. You know I always have."

[OhioChick]

15. Why did Bush never have to call for "common ground?"

:shrug:

[glinda]

16. Obama/Dems give up some more and Rethugs take some more.

[frylock]

18. bohica

[South End Liberal]

19. Have you noticed that both Dems & Repubs agree on defense spending?

The defense budget seems to be the sacred cow for both sides of the aisle. I read an article on tomdispatch.com this past week by Chris Hellman in which he stated that if you add up the defense budget plus the parts of the defense budget "hidden" in the budgets of the state department, homeland security, etc. IT ADDS UP TO 1.2 TRILLION DOLLARS.

Obama wants to cut funds for home heating for people unable to pay for the high cost of utility bills, but $1.2 TRILLION for defense is ok?

What happened to getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan? Instead of winding down those 2 wars, the Administration is adding Pakistan and Libya to the potential war list.

Our country is fast becoming a war state like the former USSR, in which a small group of people are very rich (and becoming richer off of war profiteering), the majority of the people are poor, there is no middle class and the country bankrupts itself feeding the war machine.

If Obama and the Democrats do not act quickly to curb the defense budget and war spending, the United States will find itself going down the same path as the USSR.

That is NOT what I expected from Obama when I voted for him and that is NOT what I expect from Democrats.

What has happened to my party??? :wtf:

[villager]

21. you almost wonder, with his knack for stomach-wrenching appeasement, if Obama wasn't an abuse victim

...somewhere along the way.