The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : Obama Projects $1.75 Trillion Deficit for 2009, Savings "TBD"

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The Spectacle Blog

Obama Projects $1.75 Trillion Deficit for 2009, Savings "TBD"

By Philip Klein on 2.26.09 @ 8:15AM

Some highlights from the Washington Post story on his budget, to be released today (with some emphasis in parts by me):

President Obama will release a proposed budget today that sets aside up to $250 billion dollars to add to he existing bank bailout, which would bring the 2009 budget deficit to $1.75 trillion dollars...

It identifies $634 billion in tax increases and spending cuts to cover the cost of part of the program, but does not say how the administration hopes to raise the rest of the money -- hundreds of billions of dollars more. "TBD" has been penciled into categories for cost savings and benefit reductions....

Obama's budget also would make permanent a tax cut for the middle class enacted in the recent stimulus package. But to pay for it, the president counts on a big infusion of cash from a politically controversial cap-and-trade system, which would force companies to buy allowances to exceed pollution limits....

And though Obama told Congress on Tuesday that his budget team has "already identified $2 trillion in savings" to help tame record budget deficits, about half of those "savings" are actually tax increases, administration officials said. A big chunk of the rest of the savings comes from measuring Obama's plans against an unrealistic scenario in which the Iraq war continues to suck up $170 billion a year forever.

Higher taxes, more spending, and mystery savings. Sounds like an Obama budget to me.

View all comments (2) | Leave a comment

Mike M| 2.26.09 @ 9:43AM

What else is to be expected from a Democrat?
Jimmy Carter looks like a financial genius next to our "Messiah President."

Scott Minor| 2.26.09 @ 2:24PM

Does Government “know how” to run a business?
I read the article and had to post something... Do we think that Government is the answer? This is not about Democrats vs. Republicans. This is about free markets and capitalism. Tell me one government run program that makes money and works for the long term. Freddie Mac/ Fannie Mae? Please tell me. Social Security is on the brink of bankruptcy, a social welfare program instituted back during the depression. If you read the original goals and objectives of the program, it was a short-term plan and yet today we are still trying to figure how to run it, fix it or try something else. We must be taking too many of the designer drugs to be thinking straight. Government fix is a quick/knee jerk response to the masses that get most of their information from reality TV.
Make the rich pay for it… that seems like a good answer… It is only the top 5% of the population. Think about you make over $150,000 dollars and the government has just spent 1.7 trillion dollars. That family or person will not get one benefit of that money. Think about this you will get an average of $13 dollars back from the reduce payroll tax bill. The states just voted on increasing fuel tax by another .20 to .30 cents because they are broke. The net effect is not an increase but a decrease in your take home pay. WOW… that makes a lot of sense because they got it all and we have nothing. Americans love to have a villain or something to aim their anger /frustration towards. The real answer lies in all of us. Get a job live within your means, teach values and have a strong belief system. That is a very simple statement but it requires people to have confidence in themselves. I am tired of hearing people looking for handouts. This is just another handout that eventually will be consider entitlement.
Wake up and spend the time to talk to the people. Stop talking at them. There are three sides to the story. The one we read/hear or talk about in the public. The second is the other person’s opinion or thought and the third is the truth. It is our responsibility to take action and ownership for our mistakes. Do not sit down or stand on a pulpit and talk about it. All you are doing is stirring the pot. In business, it is the responsibility of the workers and management to come up with solutions to the problems. It is not their right just to complain. BTW… Government is not a business it is here to protect the people and provide a stable environment. Re read Adam Smiths book. Get back to the basics or we will have another Boston Tea party just in a different form. Trust me people are being pushed to the max with listening to how GOVERNEMNT is here to save us….
This proposal for the rich to be “patriotic” and pay for the other 95% of the people is not the answer. BTW… in most of the companies I call on today they are slashing pay between 3-10%, dropping contributions to 401K plans and reducing payments to medical plans. Businesses know what to do to survive. Does the Government?