Obama aims to halve deficit by 2013

[FieldsBlank]

Hopefully the GOP will work with the President to tackle these problems;
instead of the usual posturing and politicizing.
At some point, shouldn't saving the nation take precedence over winning the next election?

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama wants to slash the ballooning deficit in half by 2013, U.S. officials said on Saturday, after massively increasing public spending to stem the worst economic crisis in decades.

Obama will outline his ambitious goal when he hosts a summit at the White House on Monday on fiscal responsibility and later in the week when his administration presents a summary of its first budget, for the 2010 fiscal year.

With tens of thousands of Americans losing their jobs in the midst of a global economic meltdown, Obama has said fixing the U.S. economy is his top priority. He has acknowledged that his success or failure in that will define his presidency.

"We can't generate sustained growth without getting our deficits under control," Obama said in his weekly radio address in which he also announced immediate implementation of tax cuts for 95 percent of Americans as part of the effort to stimulate the economy.

An administration official said Obama was proposing to cut the deficit, which private economists project will rise to $1.5 trillion this year, through a mixture of tax increases on wealthier Americans and spending cuts.

"The deficit this administration inherited was $1.3 trillion or 9.2 percent of GDP. By 2013, the end of the president's first term, the budget cuts the deficit to $533 billion or 3.0 percent of GDP," the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

"Most of the savings will come from winding down the war in Iraq, increased (tax) revenue from those making more than $250,000 a year, and savings from making government work more efficiently and eliminating programs that do not work," the official said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE51G5X720090222

[newfie11]

1. Wishful thinking about the GOP going along with anything

especially if it requires tax cuts for the middle class/poor and tax increases for the wealthy.
trickle down ya know!!

[FieldsBlank]

2. perhaps

wishful thinking perhaps
but without some kind of a truce in this ongoing red/blue civil war
the divide will only grow wider
lessening any possibilities of compromise and reconciliation

[endersdragon34]

5. Republicans wanted to lower the two lowest tax brackets

from 10% to 5% and from 5% to 0%. Not a whole lot of trickle down there. Guess who opposed it? Well I guess there is no real reason to guess is there...

[SlowDownFast]

3. Only response I can think of: Good Luck With That. n/t

[ixion]

4. my thoughts exactly

[barb162]

8. Same here; first thing I thought n/t

[wuvuj]

6. The graphic....

Maybe the real issue is not so much...."how big is the deficit"...but what the money is being spent on? As in...NOT...pissing it into a hole in the sand or giving $ to corps to rape and pillage the planet and it's people?

[notesdev]

7. Wanting to and doing are two different things

And the doing is looking well nigh impossible given the amount of spending ($2 trillion!!) just in the first couple of months of this administration.

Let's be honest with ourselves here - $533 billion as a deficit is not a worthy goal. It's a shame on our country. If we keep going down this route then the House will be Republican in two years, just as in 1994. I would be willing to lay money on this, I am so sure of it.

Democrats are supposed to be the adults in the room. Isn't it time the legislators with the label started acting like it? It's not OK to drive off a cliff just because the GOP already had us headed in that direction.

[wuvuj]

9. Except...it is....

...different this time? Unusual situations call for unusual methods? What is going on is either somewhere between the usual recession and the great depression...or it might even be similar to or even worse than the great depression. Some economists expect even more stimulus packages.

http://www.contraryinvestor.com/mo.htm