RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events A Decade of Pain: the Obama Budget

I would like to spit in their faces if it would make them feel better.

I have no problem with the die hard liberals/socialist/communist/shit for brains people that voted for Hussein. My problem was with all the independents and people that bought his bullshit even though they should have known better.

I want to see all these "independents" who voted for obama. I thought one of the big thing for "independents" was less government, which everyone knew obama was for during the election.

"There is a growing sense of buyer’s remorse."



I would like to spit in their faces if it would make them feel better.

I have no problem with the die hard liberals/socialist/communist/shit for brains people that voted for Hussein. My problem was with all the independents and people that bought his bullshit even though they should have known better. Fuck Them. At least Barry will have a hard time fooling them again in 3 years.

why does Obama hates charities?...the only thing i can figure is it goes along with his the government knows best theme.

I think we'll probably be in better shape in 3+ years. The angry rhetoric from right leaning people will be the same though just like it was during the Clinton years.

President Barack Obama is sending his Treasury secretary and budget director to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to defend his proposed tax increases, which are being met with misgivings by both Republicans and Democrats in Congress.

Lawmakers in both parties question Obama's call to reduce high-income earners' tax deductions for the interest on their house payments and for charitable contributions. Also drawing fire is his proposal to start taxing industries on their greenhouse gas pollution — a move sure to raise consumers' electric rates.

Obama and his top aides have been promoting the budget package since unveiling an outline last week, but Tuesday will provide the lawmakers their first opportunity to publicly question top officials about the details.

Administration officials say the nation's economic crisis requires bold action to right the economy and expand access to health care while providing tax breaks to middle- and low-income families.

The economy took another hit Monday when the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged below 7,000 for the first time since 1997.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was scheduled to appear Tuesday before the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, which also is likely to question him about Obama's declaration last week that he may be asking Congress this year for another $750 billion bailout for troubled banks.

Meanwhile, White House Budget Director Peter Orszag was to testify Tuesday before the House Budget Committee on Obama's spending priorities in the administration's $3.5 trillion budget blueprint for the 2010 fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.

Obama has been careful throughout the presidential campaign and since being elected to say he would impose higher taxes only on the wealthiest. Republicans, however, say Obama's energy proposal amounts to a tax that would increase energy costs for all Americans.

"This massive hidden energy tax is going to work its way through every aspect of American life," said Rep. Dave Camp of Michigan, the top Republican on the Ways and Means Committee. "How we light our homes, heat our homes and pay for the gas in our cars, in every phase of our daily lives, we will be paying higher costs."

Under the energy plan, Obama wants to reduce the emissions blamed for global warming by auctioning off carbon pollution permits. The proposal, known as cap and trade, is projected to raise $646 billion over 10 years.

Most of the money would be used to pay for Obama's "Making Work Pay" tax credit, which provides up to $400 a year to individuals and $800 a year to couples. The plan also would raise money for clean-fuel technologies, such as solar and wind power.

Orszag has acknowledged that the energy proposal would increase costs for consumers, but he argues that the vast majority of consumers will get tax breaks elsewhere in Obama's budget package.

Since I pay 45% income tax, I don't see higher taxes as particularly onerous.

Increasing the deficit is a big risk though.

This is really sad.

Team Obama is already blaming Bush for their record $1.75 trillion budget deficit.

And, just like how Obama and the democrats lied about the the last 8 years of economic growth, they are hoping that the media will play along with them and blame Bush for the dangerous deficit they have already racked up in Obama's first 40 days on the job.

To be clear-- those failed Bush policies dropped the deficit 4 of 8 years, held an average unemployment at 5.2%, saw the strongest productivity growth in 4 decades and witnessed robust GDP growth.
Bush was able to do this despite the recession he inherited, 9-11, Hurricane Katrina, and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As you can see from this chart, after the Bush tax cuts were implemented the budget deficit was reduced 3 of the last 4 years:



The deficit was reduced in 2005, 2006 and 2007 even with war and implementation of the successful Bush surge of troops in Iraq.
It wasn't until the mortgage crisis struck the economy, a crisis Bush warned the democratic Congress about 17 times in 2008 alone, that the deficit climbed to $459 billion.

USA Today published an interactive chart on the the Obama Administration's significant increase in spending this year.
In President Bush's last year in office, 2008, the deficit reached $459 billion:



In President Obama's first year in office the deficit is expected to reach $1.75 trillion and that is if everything goes according to the rosy scenario they are hoping for:



That is nearly 4 times as much as during President Bush's last year in office.

Obama wants to blame Bush for this.
Don't let him.
Bush didn't leave a trillion dollar debt.
Obama already has.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's proposal to limit itemized tax deductions for high earners is running into opposition from key Democrats in Congress who worry that charities and the housing market would be hurt. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus questioned Wednesday whether the proposal was viable, a day after his House counterpart also expressed reservations.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said tax increases on families making more than $250,000 a year are necessary to make a down payment on health care reform and to limit future budget deficits. But, he said, he was willing to work with lawmakers on proposals they objected to.

"We recognize there are other ways to do this," Geithner told the Finance Committee.

Baucus, a Montana Democrat, said he thought the administration would be flexible on the proposal. "They want health care reform as much as I do," he told reporters.

Geithner and White House budget director Peter Orszag returned to Capitol Hill on Wednesday for a second day of hearings on Obama's $3.6 trillion tax and spending proposal. Both faced tough questions about the tax package.

Obama's budget calls for setting aside $634 billion over the next 10 years as a down payment on health care reform. Half the money would come from tax increases on upper-income earners; the other half from cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.

Obama's budget calls for two tax increases on couples making more than $250,000 and individuals making more than $200,000. He wants to increase the top tax rates from 35 percent to 39.6 percent by allowing a tax cut enacted under President George W. Bush to expire in 2011.

He also wants to limit the deductions those families can claim for charitable donations, mortgage interest and state and local taxes.

Without the new limits, a taxpayer in the proposed 39.6 percent tax bracket could save $396 in taxes from a $1,000 reduction in taxable income. Obama wants to limit deductions to the 28 percent bracket, starting in 2011, meaning the same taxpayer would save only $280.

The higher tax rates are a good bet to become law because Obama campaigned on the change and Congress would not have to do anything to enact them. Once the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of 2010, the higher rates would take effect.

But some key Democrats are wary of limiting deductions.

"I don't want to prejudge anything, but it is certainly one that I am having difficulties with," said Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.

On Tuesday, Rep. Charles Rangel, chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said he, too, had reservations about the proposal.

"I would never want to adversely affect anything that is charitable or good," the New York Democrat said.

Republicans have been even more critical of the proposal, saying it would reduce charitable donations at a time when many charities are struggling.

"There are people with the means to help. Why would you make it harder for them to do it?" said Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, chairman of the Republican Policy Committee.

Geithner said the change would merely restore the same deduction limits that were in place when President Ronald Reagan left office.

Not everyone is rushing to feed at the federal stimulus trough without at least questioning whether all this spending is the best use of our resources. Joe Braun, board president of the Clermont County Public Library, added a bit to that discussion when he objected Tuesday to a request by the library's director for $6.8 million in stimu-bucks to build a new headquarters and branch library.

Braun pointed out that voters have approved a $3.8 million-a-year levy that will pay for the projects anyway. "Just because the federal government keeps offering money doesn't mean people should take it, because at some point our children are going to have to pay all of this back. It's absolutely not free," Braun said. "Only in a fantasy land do you spend and spend and spend and not have to pay it back."

That's oversimplifying the matter. The point of the stimulus, say those who support it and even many of its skeptics, is to jump-start the economy so that we'll recover to the point where we can at least begin pay it back.

Of course, some of those supporters oversimplify the matter too, arguing that it really doesn't matter what you spend it on, as long as you spend it. It's all good. Just shovel it on out there. And that's nuts.

Surely it's possible to have legitimate questions about why we're spending this money and what we're spending it on - whether a project is really going to create sufficient jobs and growth to justify the expenditure, particularly if other resources or more creative options are available, and whether that spending actually is setting us up for additional, costly obligations for decades to come.

That has been a practical as well as philosophical consideration for some governors who indicated they might not accept all the stimulus money earmarked (and I use that word advisedly) for their states.

Welcome to fantasy land.