President Obama's 2012 Budget Proposal
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-02-15/president-obamas-2012-budget-proposal
President Obama is feeling pressure from all sides on his 2012 budget proposal. The $3.7 trillion plan he announced yesterday reduces or entirely eliminates funding for many domestic programs and increases spending in areas specifically oriented toward the future such as education, infrastructure, and energy. The plan is projected to lead to another year of deficit spending that exceeds one trillion dollars, but longer term, it is projected to reduce the deficit from about 7% of GDP to 3.2%. Many House Republicans believe spending cuts need to be far deeper. Join us for a conversation about the President’s proposal and where the budget battles go from here.
Guests
Douglas Holtz-Eakin
president of the American Action Forum, chief economist and director of the Congressional Budget Office from 2003 to 2006.
Damian Paletta
reporter, The Wall Street Journal.
James Galbraith
economist; Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. chair in government/business relations and professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin's Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs; author of "The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too."
Comments
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We are incredibly deep in debt, but people cannot fathom how much 14 trillion is. The only way I can understand it is through visual representations. Somebody ought to make such visuals available as a public and educational service. Charts, graphs, etc.
(But a while ago an email circulated in which a college student represented the total debt with a box of pennies. Then to show the proposed -- yet "difficult"! -- proportion of cuts, he reserved such a minute amount of pennies in a separate pile, that it was incredible! It was a real eye-opener.)
Biggest paradox of all is apparent success of media forces in this country that have convinced people if we just decrease government spending that all will be better. Cuts of millions here and there or even billions will not put a dent in trillion (a million million) dollar deficits. Unless we consider taxing wealthy, or god forbid consider making cuts to our defense (offense?) budget, no substantial gains can be made.
I applaud current administration efforts in having the courage to tackle our health care issues, even at terrific political risk, because cost of staying the course (as w/GOP would have us do) was FAR GREATER than attempting to address issue. Health care costs, on projectory they were on, threatened to engulf economy.
I have no problem with trying to eliminate wasteful spending, but let's get real folks. Current proposals don't come anywhere near the roots of the problem.
Once again, discussions of cutting social security! When will you admit that not only is social security in good shape for many years and that with very minor tweeks to payroll taxes can be solvent for 85 years? Social security is a completely separate program from the general fund programs and should never be considered a cookie jar for deficit cookie raiders.
Posted by John Seyal from Kentucky:
As a young, concerned American, it seems clear to me that the budgets of programs that support Americans here at home is the last place we should be cutting corners. These programs account for such a small percentage of the federal budget, and they are NOT the primary reason we find ourselves in a financial crisis.
Instead of cutting public programs, we should be slashing our massive "defense" budget that drains hundreds of millions of dollars (at least) EVERY DAY in our ongoing wars and occupations around the globe. Our occupations and invasions have done little but fuel hatred and mistrust of our great country, and they have dug us into a very deep financial hole.
I urge you to ask yourself, what makes you proud to be an American - helping your fellow man, or funding ongoing warfare that only seems to spread more anger and destruction across the globe?
Is it true that the President is proposing cuts in heating assistance for the poor? I live in Florida (granted, it's North Florida - where we get enough deep freeze nights that people have died from the cold) and have no personal stake in that program, but I'm disgusted that such cuts would even be considered.
This is not the type of change I voted for, and runs contrary to everything I'd like to believe about the President. I wonder how he can face his daughters and tell them that poor people have to suffer because he won't protect them.
Good Morning: President Obama’s budget is either an insult or a joke. Or maybe it’s both.
Mike Farmington Hills, Michigan
Some of the proposed cuts the GOP have suggested frighten me on a personal level. My husband is a contract worker for the Department of Commerce at NIST. He was post-doc and his superiors wanted to hire him but the money wasn't there. We were lucky in that he was able to get a contract to stay on, but not as a federal employee. Now with a suggested cut to all government contractors he may be out of a job. With the economy as it is, it makes no sense to me to cut jobs anywhere. In Obama's plan my husband's job would be safe and he may even potentially be able to be hired on. We have been living in rentals, trimming our spending, and not investing as much in our local community as we would if he had a permanent position.
I feel abandoned by the Democratic Party. They are proposing to cut what I care about, such as environmental protection, while keeping defense off the table. There is no longer a real alternative to the Republicans. With the Supreme Court decision giving free rein to corporate contributions, the military industrial complex is running the country.
If we raised our taxes back to the levels during the Clinton Presidency, we would not be having this discussion. Our biggest problem is the misguided belief that lower taxes for the wealthy will stimulate the economy. Over the last ten years, our spending has gone up while our revenues went down. The Republicans want to cut, cut, cut domestic spending while increasing military spending.
The Democrats should have stood up to the wealthiest citizens and raised their taxes. It is always the poorest and neediest who suffer while the wealthiest and their cronies, the wealthy and corporate leaders, take more and more of the nation's wealth. I'm disgusted with the greed of our wealthiest citizens who have made their money off the backs of their employees and consumers. If they truly cared about this country, they would sacrifice a little of their wealth which wouldn't impact their extravagant lifestyle.
We, also, need to reform our tax code. A flat tax is not progressive.
In my opinion, our government STARTED with the WRONG priorities from the beginning. Studies have since shown that it would have been MUCH LESS COSTLY to the taxpayers to have 'bailed' out troubled homeowners and held THEM accountable. Instead, our government bailed out banks, insurance companies, wall street...all the speculators WHO CAUSED this debacle in the first place, and they HAVE YET to be held accountable. In other words, crime has paid off.
Meanwhile, in addition to the loss of jobs, the average person continues to get swept away in the foreclosure monster, because the very banks who got a helping hand have turned around and are slapping troubled homeowners away when they ask/beg for help! Tax bases for cities and state governments are suffering while we read about this bank or this firm 'up in the 4th quarter'.
I am a federal employee, whose commonlaw spouse lost his job recently. We entered into a legal domestic partnership, which our local and state government recognizes. I submitted the documents to OPM in Washington, DC. Know what OPM told me??? They don't recognize the state of Florida; they only recognize eleven states of our UNION ! WHAT??? THIS is wrong! Yet the president wants to cram the 'health program' down our throats! And how come politicians don't have to be in the new health program, too? THINK of how much money there would be left for REAL programs to help REAL people?
WHAT is wrong with our government, aside from the SELFISHNESS??? And please, it's an 'all-the-parties' problem...they should ALL be ashamed and they have ALL let we, the common woman/man down! I am ashamed to be an American right now! And I am afraid for my children and their children!
please ask guests to comment on whether raising social security age will increase the need for jobs, i.e. raise un-employment. The people 65-67 will need jobs.
Is the age for Medicare eligibility also to be increased
Maybe we should follow in the footsteps of Cairo and Revolt.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&add...
Most of those massive paper budget books will never be opened. Have the departments who are responsible for making them ever head of PDF files, iPads or Kindles? Those large bound paper books represent outdated ways of thinking that waste a lot of money.
There has always been a fight to reduce the number of military bases in the US. Are any closings proposed?
Brian, I TOTALLY agree with you. He can tell his kids that is was more important to save the banks because they were 'too big to fail'...when we die or fall over, someone just simply steps over us and continues on...just like the moving row of teeth in a shark's mouth!
He can tell his kids, that they are taken care of, but that it costs too much to care about everybody else.
I could go on, but I won't use up your square...
The discussion this morning is about the current budget and its deficit. And, sometimes it's useful to see the plan for the next 10 years. However, social security is completely sound for the next 30 or 40 years. There is a surplus that was built up to take care of the baby boomers; it was planned for 20 years ago.
So, I suggest that the current budget is not affected at all by social security. Cutting social security for the next generation will not reduce current deficts by one dime. The discussion of that has no place when discussing this year's budget. It's misleading to bring it up.
Does James Galbraith recommend that the federal government continue to spend a trillion dollars more than it takes in in perpetuity? Is there any federal spending would he cut to balance spending with revenue. Virtually all federal spending is beneficial in some way, BUT WE CAN'T AFFORD EVERYTHING WE WANT--just like in our own personal lives where we have to make do with what we have.
Interrupting others is rude. Doug impolitely interrupts James repeatedly. Doug needs to check his alpha male personality at the door when entering a civil discussion. Whatever happened to manners?
Larry in Missouri
Amen to sheridm2058
I don't hear conversation about the military in terms of JOBS. What job block of the budget do they represent? Because that's how many job-LESS people we'll have at home when they get back. Our budget needs to change focus from policing the world to live better within our means.
Thanks.
Bess Perrine
Has anyone considered that spending cuts will increase job losses? This does not seem to be mentioned by the Republicans as they propose deeper cuts.
Has the government looked at their own internal spending? For example, federal employee retirements/health care, budgets set aside for federal employees abroad, federal employee "expense" budgets etc. It seems we are looking at the big ticket items that can make the biggest impact to cut the budget but but if our government was a business, they would be cutting costs internally. The government should lead by example and take a honest look internally, as well as, externally at spending. If the taxpayers are having to sacrifice, that should include government employees as well.
Yes, Yes, Yes !!!
If the United States of Apathetic Citizens had made REAL noise over the last three years, especially in the areas of the misappropriated 'bail outs', don't you believe things MIGHT be a bit different now???
I cannot be the only one shouting here!
The best way to balance a budget is by strengthening the revenue stream. The easiest way to do that is by reducing or eliminating the sixteen percent of the GDP than goes in imbalance of trade for energy and consumer products. We can, should, and must convert from burning imported oil to burning domestically natural gas. While we move vigorously in that direction, we need to assume a war type priority in converting to sustainable blends of renewable energy.
We also need to produce domestically more than seventy percent of all consumer goods. The best way to drive the restoration of consumer goods manufacturing is to penalize retailers who are stocking less than seventy percent of their merchandise originating in domestic plants. By domestically produced merchandise, I mean merchandise made from one hundred percent U.S. produced raw materials, with labor provided by well-paid U.S. workers. boxed in materials produced in the U.S. and shipped on U.S. carriers.
By bringing pay from the current average of $29.000 to the $55,000 required to live in a one bedroom rental without having to carry a debt load, we can rapidly eliminate the entitlements which make up the bulk of the federal budget.
There is no need to subsidize U.S. business by underwriting their employee costs if you sharply reduce foreign competition. There is also no reason to subsidize exports. This is STILL the strongest consumer market in the world. To keep it that way, we must acknowledge the utter failure of globalism and discontinue globalist policies.
1- The housing market could be bolstered by restrictions being taken off of investors. Currently, private investors (those who would buy a property, update it, and make it a rental) can only hold a minimal number of properties.
2- Why are we willing to cut into our own economy and programs for the American poor, without discussing the millions of dollars being given to support other countries. One politician even said that "foreign aid is when the poor people in a rich country support the rich people in a poor country."
Douglas Holtz-Eakin must have had his say by now. He presents the same old bonecutting talk of a thousand other corporate shills. Don't invite him back.
Let's cut off the heat in the White House and see if Barack and Michelle want to let Melea and Sasha manage the kerosine heater. When the weather warms up they can visit a superfund beach on Lake Michigan. At college time, let them Ramen-noodle on a Pell grant. Why can't some penurious professor become president? Do they all have to be billionaire's houseboys?
If the Republican line is to embrace CO2 so eagerly, let it be in the form of dry ice. They can kiss it, hug it, put it in their pants pocket. It produces a fog that can hide business welfare, corporate bailouts and illegal wars. It's fun to breathe, looks like you're smoking polar pot.
If Obama is going to re-run, let him do it like the Republican corporate business booster he is, with Bill Clinton cheering all the way. We only need one party selling the same product. This is a one party totalitarian state, just like our mate China.
I do agree with caveman libertarians who say Ronpaul could win if we're hyperinflated back to the stoneage.
At that point women become money. It's the bonehead white supremacist male dream. Ronpaul charges one cow to pull out your baby.
What is Washington going to do about its most egregious entitlement program: tax cuts and loopholes for the rich?!?
The trillions of dollars that have been afforded the rich with these cuts have only ended up in campaign donations to elect puppets who learn to say three things: "cut taxes, cut government, and de-regulate."
If I were Obama, I would comandeer an armed flotilla and crash the shores of the Cayman Islands and take back the government's money from the cheating oily tycoons. With this I would protect spending in education and social security and would mandate national health care (not insurance reform), and would reduce the deficit at the same time.
Obama, if you want to be even mentioned in the same breath with Martin Luther King and Franklin Roosevelt, you have to stand up and do something. You have to stand FOR something. Stop pandering to these corporate spokesmen who threaten to shut down our government if it doesn't give billionaires tax cuts. Have some self-respect, and tell these criminals to take a hike.
Why are conservatives constantly allowed to babble out of both sides of their mouth on the social security issue?
They want to save SS for the children, they want to fix the nation's debt for our children.
Their solution? Eliminate benefits for our children!! It's infuriating. Raising the retirement age is nothing more than a cut in benefits for these very children they're claiming to care so much about.
Yet, no matter how many times I hear this discussion nobody has ever raised that issue.
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