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As he unveiled his administration's proposed 2012 budget, President Obama today sought to make a case for balancing efforts to reduce the deficit with investments in areas like education that he sees as key to the nation's long-term competitiveness.
The $3.7 trillion budget aims to slash $1.1 trillion from the deficit over the next decade, with two-thirds of that reduction coming from a five-year freeze on annual domestic spending and the rest through tax increases. Republicans in Congress say the plan does not go far enough to rein in spending and are opposed to tax hikes, with House Speaker John Boehner saying the president's budget spends too much, taxes too much, and borrows too much.
The budget would cut Pell Grant funding for summer school, as well as loan subsidies for graduate students; reduce Defense spending by $78 billion over five years; and reduce heating aid to low-income families, grants for large airports, and aid to states for water and sewage projects. It also would raise taxes and limit deductions on charitable giving and mortgage interest for wealthier Americans.
But it does not take significant steps to bring down the costs of the government's most expensive programs -- Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid -- a fact that drew the ire of critics. In Baltimore, the president said the proposal met a goal he set out at the upon taking office -- to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term -- and he pledged to work with members of both parties to make further cuts to meet the country's long-term fiscal challenges.
"As the bipartisan fiscal commission concluded, the only way to truly tackle our deficit is to cut excessive spending wherever we find it: in domestic spending, defense spending, health care spending and spending through tax breaks and loopholes," Obama said, during a visit to a Baltimore middle school. "So what we've done here is make a down payment, but there's gonna be more work that needs to be done, and it's gonna require Democrats and Republicans coming together to make it happen."
The president's trip to Parkville Middle and Center of Technology -- which has a magnet program that emphasizes math and science -- was meant to highlight his goal of "out-educating" other countries in order to better compete. He was joined at the event by Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Budget Director Jack Lew.
The upcoming budget battle will not just involve spending for fiscal year 2012 (which doesn't start until October) but also spending for the remainder of this year (which Republicans propose to slash by some $60 billion). It's a return to the classic debate between the two parties about the size and scope of the federal government.
In his remarks today, the president argued that while it was important to put the country on a stronger fiscal path, "we can't sacrifice our future in the process" by not investing in education, infrastructure, and innovation. The budget -- which would also cut funding for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative and for community service block grants, community development block grants -- includes proposals to fund high-speed rail and to expand wireless internet access.
Copies of the budget were delivered to the Senate Budget Committee this morning, and much of the rest of this week will involve members of the administration heading up to Capitol Hill to defend the president's budget priorities before various committees.
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Fasten your seat-belts folks!
We will be experiencing some turbulence....
Broke is broke.
Of course crack addicts always seem to find a way for that "final" score. And then they will stop. Yeah, sure. Heard it before - stop spending money you don't have.
Spanky-
Broke is broke.
Of course crack addicts always seem to find a way for that "final" score. And then they will stop. Yeah, sure. Heard it before - stop spending money you don't have.
spanky i agree, we must stop spending money we don't have, by getting rid of medicade part D, thats 6 trillion over 10 years, get rid of the extention of the Bush tax cuts 400 billion, and stop giving forgin aid, thats trillions. your right stop spending money we don't have, i wish republicans though the same way you do!!!!
To them these things are ok, but Pell Grant funding for summer school, as well as loan subsidies for graduate students are bad, no wonder our society is dumber and dumber every year republicans are calling the shots.
Ahh, we're back to the characterization of bloated government spending sprees as "investments". It's not "spending", it's an "investment".
We see how well this education "investment" has been going, it's been being reformed for over 40 years, and they still can't get it right. It will be the same with ObamaCare, it will always be a piece of junk, being constantly "reformed", funding for it being constantly increased, and it too will always be a piece of junk.
" stop spending money you don't have."
All of it, or some of it? I'm not trying to be funny on this one....
$1.5 trillion. Ooops, check that, $1.6 trillion.
You think you're funny?
Jeff,
I'll agree with you, we need to cut the over $40 billion in foreign aid. We need to reform the tax code most of all. Ridding ourselves of deductions and even cutting the tax rate to 11% would bring in more money than they do in our progressive tax system that barely taxes 50% of the population's workforce. Cut federal employee salaries by 5% until the unemployment rate is under 5%. Then they only get a cost of living raise based on inflation or 3% which ever lower. Cut the State Department budget. Give a little more money to the departments that work, such as the Corp of engineers.
But every department can be cut by 10% without hurting the country. By cutting the Military budget by a mere $15.6 billion a year over the next 5 years, we are cutting less than 3% of their budget per year. Please, even Spanky could look at their budget and cut more than 10% in a few minutes:) The reality is, no one wants to really cut the budget and fix the problem. That is political suicide. And it is all about politics.
And for the Pell Grant and student loan things.
I really don't have a problem with that, because I still believe that college is a privilege, not a right. We already pay for kids to get 13-14 years of education, why should we be paying as taxpayers for another 4-6 years of college.
BigBear62
Cut the State Department budget. Give a little more money to the departments that work, such as the Corp of engineers.
I'm not trying to do the blame Bush thing, but what he did to the Corp of engineers was shameful, the funding for levey system in NO was gutted, and considering how important that area is to us, for OIl, and commerce. instead of giving a little they need alot, everytime hurricane season comes, we should not have to cross our fingers that we don't get a cat 5 hurricane.
BigBear62
And for the Pell Grant and student loan things.
I really don't have a problem with that, because I still believe that college is a privilege, not a right. We already pay for kids to get 13-14 years of education, why should we be paying as taxpayers for another 4-6 years of college
Bear, so while every other industrialized nation is investing in secondary education your saying only the haves should be able to go to college. this is the same problem i had with Reagan, how does a kid that gets the grades, and makes the right chooses and want to make a difference trying to better his selfonly to be told that college is for only a select few, bear this is why we are failing to 3rd world country's today.
there only so many 711s,walmarts, factory jobs and labor jobs our youth can find jobs at.
My 2 daughters finished college using loans, they are 50 k in debt, but the opportunity's are endless!!!
And Jeff,
If they pay back their loans, then they have earned their college degree and earned the privilege of going to college. But the Pell Grant program is "free" money that does not have to be repaid. Scholarships don't have to be repaid. Student loans have to be, which means in the end, they have paid their for their education. I don't have a problem with people taking loans out to complete their education, I have a problem giving taxpayer money to people that never repay it. Especially in the forms of grants.
And when I speak of privilege, I don't mean only those 2% of the wealthiest get to go to college. I mean that it is a privilege to get into college and attend it so that you can better yourself. Everyone has the right and privilege to go to college--but their entire educations should not be on the taxpayer dime.
Heck, if we continue to pay for everyone's education, when will it end. When I retire?
And the student loans were for subsidies for graduate students, not undergraduates. If you are a graduate student, you should be able to get work study money, not just grants and loans.
Cut education? Seriously?!
How will we then keep up with the rest of the world?
Why is my son, straight A's through every grade, unable to get any scholarships for college?
What kind of encouragement is this? People will joke about entitlements and investments but our children and their education are the future. An investment for all of us. If we cannot offer our children some hope, some assurance that there is reward for all of their hard work, then what are we doing?
Gosh JoAnna, Drive By's comments would be funny if not so totally sad.
Really Drive By, you just can't seem to figure out spending more that you got is a bad thing? Is that how you run your own fiances?
The rubber be hitting the road my man. Your glib, emptiness just ain't going to cut it.
Fielden, the issue I have with education is the only thing we seem to succeed at in that area is throwing money at a black hole. There is no such thing as too much money spent on a successful education system but we don't have that and the problem is not funding. Honestly, I think we could swap the defense budget for the education budget and not see a lick of change- the military would find a way to succeed with less and education would continue to fail because we are not addressing the root causes of it's failure- complacency. Instead of increasing (hell, even maintaining) our standards to encourage success, we lower them to allow the system to pass more kids through. We teach to the test rather than for success. We allow parents to treat schools as free daycare instead of learning institutions- we need their involvement in their kids education, not their protection for kids who misbehave and disrupt the efforts of their peers. We reward longevity instead of success in the classroom when it comes to teachers. These are the things we must address to get our education system back on track. Heck, I'll even toss out a few ideas-
Voucher system for ALL schools- we know what the average cost per student is, so allow each child to take those education dollars to the school of their choosing. Close the doors of the schools that get no students. Move the successful teachers to other schools and use them to replace those who are not demonstrating classroom success regardless of tenure. If the cost of education is more than the voucher amount, the parents make up the difference, if it's less, the extra goes back into the general fund to reduce the tax burden the next year.
Require administrators to work in the same building as those they administer. No more separate facilities that cost tax payers hundreds of thousands of dollars annually and insulate the administrators from the realities that exist in the hallways of their schools. This works for many smaller districts, do it across the board for the larger ones, too.
Tie welfare benefits to students success- if you are a welfare recipient and you have a child in school, your child must maintain a minimum C average in all of their classes in order to collect a 60% check. If your child maintains a B average, you get 80%, A average you get the full check. While your kid's in school you could get a *gasp* JOB to help supplement your income. Heck I'll even throw in 3 squares and uniform costs for your kids- they shouldn't have to suffer because you get reduced benefits but if extortion is what it takes to get you to understand the importance of your child showing up every day (except when sick of course) and putting forth the effort to succeed, by God let's extort. Humans are, by nature, lazy- most are not willing to do any more than necessary to get by, we need to stop coddling and start demanding excellence.
Stop this nonsense about passing kids so they can stay with their peer groups and not feel badly if held back. Sometimes we need to feel bad in order to understand what it takes to succeed, sometimes kids need another year of development to make sense of what's being taught, whatever. Teachers are finally catching on to the fact that not everyone learns the same way or at the same pace but that doesn't mean anyone is incapable of learning- it just takes time to find a way to make it click so lets give the kids the time they need rather than worrying about the parents egos over having their kids held back. Trust me, the stigma on the student is not that great, especially in the early grades where its most important to make sure they understand the fundamentals.
here we go again! the rich get richer and the poor get screwed. It didn't work for Regan and it won't work now! Let's get out of the war business and back to the people business. Now, there's a great savings and a great investment!
Simple solution - do like Bush and take the wars off the books! That should shave a few billion off the deficit.. ( :) )
Exempt the first $50,000 from FICA tax and then tax all income above that. It's simple and reinstates what Social Security will need. People will be able to retire and others take their place in the workforce. The reason people cannot retire until 65 is often medical insurance. The new health plan will ultimately divorce insurance from employment. Think about you and your parents. Would you have wanted them to slave away until death? The income gap between rich and poor is growing. This is not good for any society.
All the cuts are mostly in areas that benefits the less privilege and education. Surprisingly, the cut masters wouldn't mind cutting more carrot for the super rich.
if we really want to cut..... with just these few steps,
1.get out of this war to nowhere today
2.roll back the tax cuts for super rich and their estates
3.no tax cuts for companies that ship job overseas.
4. since China like to play with their currency, tax goods made China more....that's a balance act.
5. Stop the practice of tax credits that return more money to people than their withholding.
If you paid $1000 in federal income tax over the course of the year and ended up with a net zero liability, you should not get more than $1000 back. Closing that single loophole would at least level the field for the rest of us.
"...with House Speaker John Boehner saying the president's budget spends too much, taxes too much, and borrows too much."
=================
How about Mr. Speaker that instead of talking about what the President's budget alledgely does and does not do, where is the GOP (ACTUAL NUMBERS) budget at? Tell me the exact number of jobs the GOP budget creates, when and in what sectors and on what day does the Federal budget go back into the black!!
If I remember correctly, it wasn't too long ago all you heard from the GOP was how your members were kicked out of this meeting and not invited to that meeting for the past 2 years so I'm hard-pressed to understand how the GOP didn't bust the doors down with proposals that would "get the Country back on track" on day 1 of your control of the House. Lord knows you've alledgedly had all the time in the world to come up with them.
at Allen - Omaha -
it takes time for the agent orange to sober up to try and think with a clear head....and I'm sure in the infamous words of some Dr. who does a head exam will say - there is nothing there!
Now Obama wants to curtail spending and make cuts? How odd, up until congress had a Republican majority, he was all gong-ho on raising taxes for everyone, except illegals, to reduce the deficit.
I was just thinking a simillar thought...
Now the GOP wants to curtail spending and make cuts? They had no problem spending away under W, Hastert and Delay.
Curious...will the GOP's alternative to President Obama's proposals be longer than 18 pages this time?
he only wanted to let the tax cuts expire on the top 2percent. dont exaggerate something so that it seems like your making a real point.
Do we think it is humanly possible for Obama to have a 50% favorable rating by fall of 2011 and Congress have a 4% favorable rating by end of 2011? I think so because as a group, they couldn't catch a cold! We, the american people better find some smarts come next election, on both sides because all we have now is caterers to the lobbyists, to their own parties and apron string hangers. My hope is we send this bunch up to the international space center and hope it gets hit by an astroid!
President Obama made his case on the budget and so did John Boehner -
There is a wide open contest to run against President Obama and Boehner is doing everything he can for his high-dollar cronies in his district. Boehner and House Republicans appear to have included an earmark-in-all-but-name for the new Speaker’s district in the newly released House Appropriations Continuing Resolution (CR). The CR includes massive cuts to important programs like Head Start and LIHEAP, but one thing it doesn’t cut is $450 million stashed away for the construction of a Joint Strike Fighter engine the Pentagon doesn’t even want. This pulled from national headlines, proof positive there are lives at stake with the Republican Roght and the TEA sippers. General Electric and Rolls Royce will benefit tremendously in Boehners district. It now appears that Boehner is funneling money to his own district in an earmark-in-all-but-name may be part of the reason for that. This from the leader trying cut 100 billion from the deficit, but not from his district.