Last Hour Budget Discussions

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Last hour budget discussions
avoided a partial government
shut-down and President Barack
Obama will lay out his plan for
long-term deficit reduction
demanded by conservatives this week.

White House Senior Adviser David
Plouffe was on Sunday talk shows
to reveal Obama's intentions and
deliver the administration's message
that more deals like the one reached
last Friday night with House Speaker
John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Senate
Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada,
will be necessary as Congress and the
administration face more major budget
decisions in the coming months.

Obama's plan would address rising costs
of Medicare, Medicaid, cut defense
spending and raise revenue by ending
tax breaks for the wealthy, Plouffe.

"He does believe that to grow economically,
to be a strong country, we can't sustain
this fiscal situation," Plouffe explained
on CNN. Acknowledging some dissent among
the president's liberal base, Plouffe
continued, "there are some that don't
agree with that, but he believes strongly
that we do have to engage in serious
deficit reduction."

Last week, Obama and congressional leaders
reached an agreement to cut $38.5 billion
in non-military discretionary spending for
the rest of the current fiscal year, ends
on September 30.

The deal came about an hour before funding
authorization for the government was scheduled
to expire, and would have partially shut down
government operations.

Source: http://newsblaze.com/story/20110412045658writ.nb/topstory.html

Deficit Panel Proposes Cuts

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A White House commission proposes
to cut the federal budget deficit
by hundreds of billions a year.
Social Security benefits, middle
class tax breaks and defense spending
are of interest.

The initial plan is to stop various
breaks the middle class are getting
like the deduction for home mortgage
interest.

On Social Security, the plan would
slowly raise the retirement age to 68
around 2050, 69 by 2075. It would combine
various cuts to benefits with an increase
in taxes on wealthier people's incomes.
Also, it's looking to curb federal spending
on health care except what's needed for the
recently passed health care plan. This would
be achieved by introducing further changes,
including reform of medical/malpractice law,
and by slowing the growth of the Medicare p
rogram.

A version of the plan would dramatically lower
individual rates to 9%, 15% and 24%.

"Tough choices" are going to be necessary to
tame a deficit that has soared to more than
$1 trillion a year, President Barack Obama
shared with leaders of his own Democratic
Party.

"Before anybody starts shooting down proposals,
we need to listen, gather up all the facts, and
be straight with the American people," Mr. Obama
stated at a press conference Thursday in Seoul,
where he attended a Group of 20 nation's summit.

The commission staff's goal is to curtail growth
of the federal debt by roughly $3.8 trillion by
2020.

"In the end, the president is going to have to
decide whether to incorporate some of this into
the 2012 budget," David Walker, a former U.S.
comptroller general and an advocate for deficit
reduction. "He's going to have to lead, because
if the president doesn't lead on this, it goes
nowhere fast."