With so many headlines from major news outlets talking about Barack Obama's proposed 2012 budget, deep within an ABC News' Political Punch article, we see the bottom line:~~~At no point in the president’s 10-year projection would the U.S. government spend less than it's taking in.~~~
By the numbers:
The U.S. government would bring in $2.627 trillion in revenues and spend $3.729 trillion.
According to Obama's so-called "budget" proposal, our 2011 deficit would spike to $1.65 trillion.
Noel Sheppard, at NewsBusters, makes this point:
....this means that since the Democrats took over Congress in 2007, we have posted over $5 trillion in deficits.
For the record, that's more combined non-inflation-adjusted red ink than the United States of America had created in all of the years of its existence prior to that point.
In just four years, the Democrats recorded combined deficits greater than what had been posted in the prior 220 years.
ABC News highlights the details of the proposal:
Among the tax increases proposed:
• ending subsidies for oil and gas companies ($46 billion/10 years); and
• reducing the rate at which those in the highest tax bracket and some people in the second highest bracket can itemize tax deductions in areas such as interest on home mortgages and charitable giving
The Obama administration is also proposing letting expire after 2012 the lower Bush tax rates on income over $200,000 for an individual $250,000 for a family but they are not including this revenue when projecting the $1.1 trillion in deficit reduction.
Among the spending freezes/cuts:
• a five-year spending freeze over non-security-related discretionary spending ($400 billion/10 years);
• cutting $300 million in Community Block Grants, which help cities and counties fund low income housing and anti-poverty programs;
• cutting the low-income heating assistance program (LIHEAP) in half, or by $2.5 billion;
• cutting $125 million from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative;
• cutting more than $1 billion in grants to large airports;
• cutting $950 million in states’ funds for water treatment plants and other infrastructure; and
• having the Pentagon budget grow at just the rate of inflation would cut $78 billion
Yesterday morning, Speaker of the House, John Boehner sent a letter to Obama, signed by 150 economists urging an end to "stimulus" spending and calling for immediate spending cuts to boost our economy and help create a better environment for job creation in America.
Letter below:
From the Speaker's website:
House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) today said President Obama is set to follow his request for an increase in the debt limit with a budget that “will continue to destroy jobs by spending too much, borrowing too much, and taxing too much.
More:
Early reviews confirm President Obama’s budget will offer too much spending, taxing, and borrowing. By “raising taxes” and seeking “more spending,” the president’s blueprint “would barely put a dent in deficits,” according to The Washington Post and “does not even hit the short-term goal he set” for his own fiscal commission. As Speaker Boehner said today: “This isn't winning the future, it's spending the future.”
Bottom line here is something that every individual that lives on a budget understands.. you cannot spend more than you make.
If American citizens have to live within their means, then we have the right to insist our government do the same.
This proposal will now go to Congress which will rewrite much of it trying to bring spending down to at least the amount that we are bringing in, which will create a showdown between the Democratically run Senate, the Democrat in the White House and the Republican controlled House of Representatives.
Progressive liberals continue to try to offer the false argument that the extension of the Bush era tax cuts somehow increases our deficit over time, but since that is not money that is "in hand" for the government to spend, it has nothing to do with increasing the deficit.
Spending money that is not there to spend is what increases deficits. Borrowing money to pay for that spending is what increases the debt.
Raising taxes on Americans to justify spending and borrowing more money and claiming that by not raising those taxes it is somehow raising our deficit is complete intellectual dishonesty.
Here is an analogy for you.
Neighbor one uses credit cards and keeps spending more money than he is taking in, increasing his debt to the credit card companies and increasing his own household deficits. He does this by assuming he can sneak into his neighbors house and steal money to pay those credit cards off.
Neighbor two protects his money and prevents neighbor one from stealing from him.
Neighbor one then cries out that if he would have been able to take money from his neighbor, he would have been able to pay off the credit card companies, lessen his debt and he would not have such high deficits then.
That money was never his to begin with so has absolutely nothing to do with his spending nor his borrowing habits.
Intellectually dishonest argument.
[Update] You can see the entire budget proposal here.
[Update #2] Reactions from Senate Republicans found here.
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