2
Obama budget targets discretionary spending
President Obama gives Congress his budget proposal for the next fiscal year on Monday, and how he plans to tackle two issues - the federal government's spending, and the growing deficit - is the center of heated debate.
For the White House and Congress to begin to address the deficit, serious budget cuts are all but required. The harder questions are where to cut and how much.
Entitlements vs. discretionary spending
Federal spending is expected to reach $3.7 trillion in this fiscal year, up about 7 percent from the year before, according to a report from the Congressional Budget Office (PDF). That growth is mostly due to increases in entitlement benefits such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Entitlements account for more than half of federal outlays, but Social Security and Medicare, especially, have historically been untouchable.
Discretionary spending controlled by annual appropriations is a smaller slice of the pie - and much smaller if defense spending is excluded. Discretionary spending also pays for activities from education grants to environmental protection to housing assistance.
Here's the problem: Spending on entitlements is expected to grow considerably during the next decade, even measured against the growth of the economy. So the only way to make a dent in the growing deficit is to cut entitlements or raise taxes.
Meanwhile, interest payments on the government's borrowing will continue to grow.
Here are the Congressional Budget Office's projections through 2021:
What to expect from Obama's budget
President Obama is expected to call for a five-year freeze on domestic discretionary spending, which the Administration says will save about $400 billion.
And he has committed to a two-year freeze of federal civilian employees salaries, which is expected to save $5 billion. Pentagon spending will also be scrutinized.
But the president says he wants to increase spending on education, high-speed rail, and wireless infrastructure.
The president's budget proposal is just that - a proposal. Congress must vote to authorize spending.
Social Security has nothing to do with the federal budget. I wish you all would just stop. Cutting medical entitlements will do nothing except put a lot more people out on the streets. Cutting medical industry corporate gravy will help everybody, but that's not what this show is about is it? How about talking about our 14 aircraft carriers? Do we really need them? Or is that too close to home? That's why I listen to you people. To find out what the MIC wants us to think. Nothing constructive. Just take the money to support the old fossilized cold war thinking and US be damned (did I just call you traitors? I think I did.).
For the cost of the wars we could just buy the oil. Just say: we'll pay 10% over anybody's offer. We'll never lack. Fighting wars is for chumps and if we get involved in the millions of wars that are going to breaking out in the upcoming decade, then we are going to bankrupt ourselves and die. What we need is a cheap export stealth fighter. The VW of fighters. We need to be selling gold pans because frankly, panning gold doesn't pay.
I get so very tired of the Corporate Narrative. Within another decade we will see unrest on the streets of America. The narrative that someone “who is serious about the deficit†has to figure out how to impoverish a failing working class, and lower middle class, by cutting the deficit on their backs is both immoral and foolish.
The idea that the 80% of American who’s net assets are now less then 10% of total American wealth is a better target then the 20% of Americans that own 90% of all the net wealth in America is not only morally wrong but it will eventually destroy the country we love.
If you give the working class wealth, much of it is spent and stays in America. If you give the rich wealth the majority is spent in the global economy not America. Soon America will have unsustainable urban areas, and almost 50% of African American males visiting at some point in their suppressed existence our Criminal “justice†system. The few wealthy that do not like living in their gated communities, and well policed estates, will pick up and move to provinces overseas like the Roman Oligarchs of Old did. They will have gotten all they needed out of America and left our children and grandchildren with a significantly worse standard of living.
Frankly it is better for the top 10% of Americans what is happening, they do not care if America looses a middle class citizen to create two in China, and frankly our citizenry is too unaware and distracted to care. I personally just hate to see the American dream of a educated, prosperous and active citizen democracy be destroyed by greed.
