Stephanie
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links in article at site.
SNIP:
By LIZ PEEK, The Fiscal Times
February 14, 2012President Obama does not deserve to be reelected. By refusing to address the greatest challenge this nation faces our financial security Mr. Obama has failed the American people. Despite warnings from the IMF, the credit ratings agencies, China -- our principal foreign creditor -- and the American people, the president continues to offer up budgets and programs that ignore the dire trajectory of Medicare and Social Security spending, putting the future of this nation at risk.
RELATED: Obamas 2013 Budget Forecasts Increasing Debt
Lets get specific. This week Mr. Obama set forth a budget calling for yet another trillion-dollar deficit, the fourth in four years. Through certain spending cuts, some gimmickry (counting not spending on two wars as deficit reduction) and $1.5 trillion in tax hikes, the budget gap is projected to shrink to $575 billion in 2018, comfortably beyond the range of the countrys political telescope.
Each of the proposals major provisions scratches a partison itch: raising taxes on the wealthy, imposing new fees on banks, eliminating tax cuts on oil companies, spending $476 billion on transportation projects (mollifying construction crews teed off at the Keystone veto), allotting $30 billion for (guaranteed voting blocks) police, teachers and fire department workers, and so on. As the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget summarizes, the presidents budget stabilizes our debt at 76 percent of GDP roughly double historical debt levels. This is not acceptable.
To be fair, Mr. Obama proposes to save $364 billion over ten years in Medicare and Medicaid, mainly through slicing payments for prescription drugs ($156 billion), taking money from skilled nursing facilities and long-term care hospitals ($63 billion) and changing the way the government compensates doctors and hospitals for bad debts ($36 billion). The budget assumes the fantasy 30 percent cut in pay to healthcare providers contained in earlier projections. If you believe that these proposals will be adopted, please send me a certified check of $1,000 to claim your million-dollar lottery prize.
The budget is as cynical an affair as last years offering, which was defeated 97-0 in the Senate an act of rare bipartisan cooperation. Before we celebrate that moment of sanity, however, we recollect that the Senate has not passed a budget in more than 1,000 days, though they are required by law to do so. The White House blames this dereliction of duty on intransigent Republicans (a charge most recently leveled by Budget Director Lew over the weekend) but in reality all that is needed is a simple Senate majority to pass a budget, which the Democrats have.
All this skirmishing is but B-rated play-acting. Informed citizens should be furious that the real issues clouding our future are not even addressed by our president. The crisis in our country is two-fold: a rising number of people receive ever-increasing assistance from the government. At the same time, fewer Americans are paying taxes. The inevitable outcome is a widening gap between revenues and outlays: the deficit. The recession has accelerated the problem. Here are the facts:
the rest here..
Obama
SNIP:
By LIZ PEEK, The Fiscal Times
February 14, 2012President Obama does not deserve to be reelected. By refusing to address the greatest challenge this nation faces our financial security Mr. Obama has failed the American people. Despite warnings from the IMF, the credit ratings agencies, China -- our principal foreign creditor -- and the American people, the president continues to offer up budgets and programs that ignore the dire trajectory of Medicare and Social Security spending, putting the future of this nation at risk.
RELATED: Obamas 2013 Budget Forecasts Increasing Debt
Lets get specific. This week Mr. Obama set forth a budget calling for yet another trillion-dollar deficit, the fourth in four years. Through certain spending cuts, some gimmickry (counting not spending on two wars as deficit reduction) and $1.5 trillion in tax hikes, the budget gap is projected to shrink to $575 billion in 2018, comfortably beyond the range of the countrys political telescope.
Each of the proposals major provisions scratches a partison itch: raising taxes on the wealthy, imposing new fees on banks, eliminating tax cuts on oil companies, spending $476 billion on transportation projects (mollifying construction crews teed off at the Keystone veto), allotting $30 billion for (guaranteed voting blocks) police, teachers and fire department workers, and so on. As the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget summarizes, the presidents budget stabilizes our debt at 76 percent of GDP roughly double historical debt levels. This is not acceptable.
To be fair, Mr. Obama proposes to save $364 billion over ten years in Medicare and Medicaid, mainly through slicing payments for prescription drugs ($156 billion), taking money from skilled nursing facilities and long-term care hospitals ($63 billion) and changing the way the government compensates doctors and hospitals for bad debts ($36 billion). The budget assumes the fantasy 30 percent cut in pay to healthcare providers contained in earlier projections. If you believe that these proposals will be adopted, please send me a certified check of $1,000 to claim your million-dollar lottery prize.
The budget is as cynical an affair as last years offering, which was defeated 97-0 in the Senate an act of rare bipartisan cooperation. Before we celebrate that moment of sanity, however, we recollect that the Senate has not passed a budget in more than 1,000 days, though they are required by law to do so. The White House blames this dereliction of duty on intransigent Republicans (a charge most recently leveled by Budget Director Lew over the weekend) but in reality all that is needed is a simple Senate majority to pass a budget, which the Democrats have.
All this skirmishing is but B-rated play-acting. Informed citizens should be furious that the real issues clouding our future are not even addressed by our president. The crisis in our country is two-fold: a rising number of people receive ever-increasing assistance from the government. At the same time, fewer Americans are paying taxes. The inevitable outcome is a widening gap between revenues and outlays: the deficit. The recession has accelerated the problem. Here are the facts:
the rest here..
Obama
