It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
Obama: He wants to raise taxes on wealthy, trim defense
Republicans: They want to target Medicare and Medicaid
Obama plan
Entitlement programs:
Would lift the cap on the amount of taxes paid into Social Security.
Would save on Medicare and Medicaid through imporvements in health care delivery.
Taxes: Would end tax breaks for households earning more than $250,000 a year.
Discretionary spending: Would trim military and other discretionary spending areas.
Source: Hard Copy Chicago Tribune Newspaper
Posted: Tuesday, April 12, 2011 12:00 am
Obama's debt cutting plan: Everything on the table 0 comments
In short Iraq and Afganistan were Bush's wars he and Obama is trying to finish them and get us out like he promised...........he is the black janitor cleaning up Bush Jr.'s mess.
Share
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama, plunging into the rancorous struggle over America's mountainous debt, will draw sharp differences with Republicans Wednesday over how to conquer trillions of dollars in spending while somehow working out a compromise to raise some taxes and trim a cherished program like Medicare.
Obama's speech will set a new long-term deficit-reduction goal and establish a dramatically different vision from a major Republican proposal that aims to cut more than $5 trillion over the next decade, officials said Monday.
Details of Obama's plan are being closely held so far, but the deficit-cutting target probably will fall between the $1.1 trillion he proposed in his 2012 budget proposal and the $4 trillion that a fiscal commission he appointed recommended in December.
The speech is intended as a declaration of Obama's commitment to seriously tame the deficit while outlining his long-term budget principles — key components of his campaign for re-election in 2012. After gingerly avoiding any discussion until now of cuts in the government's massive benefit programs for the elderly and poor, Obama will acknowledge a need to reduce spending on Medicare and Medicaid while at the same time tackling defense spending and calling for increased taxes on the wealthy, White House officials said.
If that sounds like a reprise of last week's budget fight that barely avoided a government shutdown, it isn't. The stakes are far higher, the political risks greater and the goals more ambitious. At issue are long-term budget deficits and a $14.3 trillion national debt that many say could threaten the nation's economy.
The cuts accomplished last week were for $38.5 billion over the next six months; the cuts envisioned now are for trillions of dollars over the next 10 years.
Obama's speech, to be delivered at George Washington University, comes as Congress readies for a fierce fight over raising the nation's debt limit. Republicans have vowed to use that vote as leverage to extract greater budget discipline from the Democrats and the president.
Setting the terms of the debate and the likely brinkmanship to follow, White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Monday: "What I'm saying is that we support a clean piece of legislation to raise the debt ceiling. ... We cannot play chicken with the economy in this way."
The president's speech also comes amid liberal apprehension over recent Obama spending concessions and a desire among some Democrats to make proposed GOP cuts in Medicare a 2012 election issue.
House Republicans, led by the chairman of the House Budget Committee, Paul Ryan, last week unveiled a plan that would cut $5.8 trillion over 10 years with a major restructuring of the nation's signature health care programs for the elderly and the poor. Meanwhile, six senators have formed a bipartisan group to work on their own plan to rein in long-term deficits by making changes to Medicare and Medicaid and examining a fundamental overhaul of the tax system that would yield additional revenue.
Source: www.idahopress.com...
Originally posted by beezzer
It's just a good thing that Obama got rid of the Patriot Act.
Originally posted by ofhumandescent
.........he has pulled out of IRAQ, (We have 50,000 nonactive noncombat soldiers left)
Obama has forced NATO to handle Libya
The US military and the Obama administration loudly trumpeted the withdrawal of the "last combat brigade" from Iraq last week, but news reports suggest the move is purely semantic: The combat brigades are still there, but under a different name.
Originally posted by ofhumandescent
reply to post by 13th Zodiac
Believe whatever you need to believe.
Second line
Originally posted by centurion1211
Originally posted by ofhumandescent
.........he has pulled out of IRAQ, (We have 50,000 nonactive noncombat soldiers left)
Obama has forced NATO to handle Libya
Dealing with just two of the false statements in the OP:
1 - Combat troops are still in iraq. We didn't withdraw them all. We just changed the unit names.
source
The US military and the Obama administration loudly trumpeted the withdrawal of the "last combat brigade" from Iraq last week, but news reports suggest the move is purely semantic: The combat brigades are still there, but under a different name.
2 - NATO is mostly run by the U.S. NATO's commanders are mostly U.S. officers. NATO's forces are mostly U.S. forces. Therefore, the U.S. is still running the Libya war.