Obama budget declares election-year tax battle

[Jolie Rouge]

By Alister Bull and Richard Cowan | Reuters – 3 hrs ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will seek billions of dollars for jobs and infrastructure in his 2013 budget, an appeal to voters that draws election-year battle lines over taxes and spending as Republicans slammed him for "debt, doubt and decline."

Obama's budget proposal, which he will submit to Congress on Monday, will project a much smaller deficit in 2013 compared with this year, White House officials said on Friday.

"The budget targets scarce federal resources to the areas critical to growing the economy and restoring middle class security," the White House said in a statement, echoing Obama's recent messages on the campaign trail.

The budget gives Obama one of his biggest platforms before the election to tell voters how he would govern in a second White House term, helping him cast Republicans as the party of the rich, while they paint him as a tax and spend liberal.

Congress is free to ignore his proposal and Republicans, seeking to defeat him on November 6, declared it dead on arrival.

"This unserious budget is a recipe for debt, doubt and decline," said Brendan Buck, spokesman for the top Republican lawmaker, Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner.

"It would make our economy worse by imposing massive tax increases on small business and still pile up enormous debt that stirs greater economic uncertainty," he said.

The budget will include a multi-year request for over $800 billion for job creation programs and spending on roads and other surface infrastructure, including $300 billion that could be felt starting this year in tax breaks and other steps to spur hiring.

Obama's request projects a deficit in fiscal 2013 of $901 billion, down from $1.33 trillion this year, the officials said.

The numbers, both higher than the White House estimated in September, indicate a deficit equivalent to 5.5 percent of gross domestic product in 2013, versus 8.5 percent in 2012.

BRIGHTER OUTLOOK

In addition, recent indicators from the labor market have been better than expected and the White House has already announced that a predicted 2012 unemployment rate in the budget of 8.9 percent was "stale" and should be lower. The U.S. jobless rate fell to 8.3 percent in January.

The president will repeat a call for millionaires to pay a minimum tax rate of 30 percent, named after billionaire investor Warren Buffett, and identify $4 trillion in deficit reduction steps over 10 years that broadly mirrors a plan he laid out in September.

The budget will also propose raising $1.5 trillion over a decade through higher taxes, a plan first announced in September, with around half coming from allowing tax breaks for families earning more than $250,000 a year to expire at the end of 2012.

Breaking down the job and infrastructure spending, the budget would earmark $476 billion for roads and transportation upgrades over six years, and $350 billion to jump-start job creation. The plans were previewed in Obama's State of the Union address last month, under a call for more economic fairness in American.

The jobs measures include extending a payroll tax cut over 2012, allowing firms to fully deduct fresh investment and a call to allocate $60 billion to modernize schools and keep teachers on the job, also repeating a request Obama made in September.

Nor is it the first time the president has sought funds from Congress for infrastructure. In 2012 he proposed $35 billion a year over six years for transportation, claiming this would create hundreds of thousands of jobs, and $50 billion to set up a National Infrastructure Bank. Congress did not fund that plan.

Federal government spending has already been capped for 2013 in a deal Obama and Republicans reached last summer to raise the U.S. debt ceiling. Last month Obama announced defense spending cuts of $487 billion over 10 years.

The budget must still spell out where the ax falls on domestic spending. But it identifies $360 billion in savings from Medicare and Medicaid, federal healthcare programs for elderly and poor Americans, over 10 years.

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-budget-declares-election-tax-battle-020118135.html

comments

The lower unemployment Obama touts is a fraud. There are less people looking for work because so many are on unemployment and are staying home, not looking for jobs, collecting their unemployment checks for two years. Why work, when Obama will pay you for two years to stay home?

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He is not going to get over $350 billion in savings from Medicaid and Medicare unless he just kills off all the elderly before they can even access healthcare. And as for Medicaid, his Obamacare program is growing that by making more eligible with the federal government pledged to pick up the difference at least for a few years for the states, so where is the possible savings in that? In addition, we will still have uninsured going to the ER's for their medical care and that will have to be paid for in some way. All I see is this costing more and definitely not saving $$$. He could tax everyone that currently pays taxes at 100% and still not be able to pay the bills. That ship has sailed. We really don't have any way of paying back everything this man has spent and obligated us to and he continues to just want more and more and more. Where are the jobs? Why hasn't the senate voted on the large number of job bills sent to them by the house? I guess if they did, then he couldn't point to a do nothing congress. What we have is a incompetent President who wants another term at all cost, and we are the ones suffering for his ambitions.

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So the shovel ready infrastructure plans have reappeared again. Then in about 9 months he will laugh it off and say oh i quess the shovel ready jobs were not so shovel ready.

[Jolie Rouge]

http://media.townhall.com/Townhall/Car/b/120215Budget%20RGB20120215102905.jpg

http://www.townhallmail.com/eydlrcktllzfrtltftrykfvhhqfhhtqkppycwrzbhzzhsz_zzs rdldzsdr.html

[Jolie Rouge]

Never let it be said that Obama takes governing seriously
Posted by Soren Dayton - Thursday, February 16th at 10:14AM EST
7 Comments

Last night President Barack Obama spoke at two “star-studded” Hollywood fundraisers. And, according to Politco, he noted to a group of people who make their quite nice livings in theatrics that “people … like … poetry” rather than the “prose” of governing. http://www.politico.com/politico44/2012/02/obama-weve-been-slogging-through-prose-114663.html


Mentioning former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo’s quip that politicians campaign in poetry and govern in prose, Obama said he’s written more of the latter than the former in his first three years in office. ”We’ve been slogging through prose for the last three years,” he said. “People, they like the poetry.”

Monday night, I did a radio show opposite a Democrat. The Democrat made very clear that he viewed the budget that the President released on Monday as an entirely political document. It made no claim to solving any long-term problems faced by the country. According to this consultant, the primary purpose of the budget was to make an argument about “fairness” and “who should pay.”

We are in the midst of poetry, I fear. And, as President Obama once said, it is all “just words.”

http://www.redstate.com/soren_dayton/2012/02/16/never-let-it-be-said-that-obama-takes-governing-seriously/

Obama Wishes He Knew Full Extent of Economic Crisis When He Took Office
By Doug Powers • February 15, 2012 10:42 PM

President Obama’s term has reached a political heliopause of sorts marking the region between where “if I don’t have this economy fixed in three years I’m a one-termer” ends, http://mrctv.org/videos/obama-2009-if-economy-isnt-fixed-3-years-there-will-be-1-term-proposition and the remote and unpredictable “37-months and beyond” area of interstellar re-election bow shock begins. One sign the economy hasn’t been “fixed” is evident in the fact that Obama is now saying he didn’t realize how bad the problems were in the first place: http://www.politico.com/politico44/2011/12/obama-we-didnt-know-how-bad-it-was-107355.html


President Barack Obama said Tuesday he wishes he knew the full extent of the economic crisis when he took office, if only so he could have let Americans know just how tough the coming years would be.

“I think we understood that it was bad, but we didn’t know how bad it was,” Obama said in an interview with KIRO in Seattle. “I think I could have prepared the American people for how bad this was going to be, had we had a sense of that.”


Rewind to October of 2008 — how much more could Obama have prepared the American people? http://www.hapblog.com/2012/02/recession-lot-deeper-that-barack-obama.html



I think everybody knows now that we are in the worst financial crisis since the great depression.


Sheriff Biden said the same thing in 2009. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vB6M3iDzhIg

Either we were and/or are still in a crisis worse than the Great Depression, or Obama’s only hope in November is that voters have incredibly short memories.

http://michellemalkin.com/2012/02/15/obama-economic-crisis/

comments

If President Obama is not hurting the economy on purpose, why did he appoint John Holdren as his top science and technology adviser? He knew full well that Holdren has long advocated the following:


“Resources must be diverted from frivolous and wasteful uses in overdeveloped countries to filling the genuine needs of underdeveloped countries. This effort must be largely political, especially with regard to our overexploitation of world resources, but the campaign should be strongly supplemented by legal and boycott action against polluters and others whose activities damage the environment.”

"“The need for de-development presents our economists with a major challenge. They must design a stable, low-consumption economy in which there is a much more equitable distribution of wealth than in the present one. Redistribution of wealth both within and among nations is absolutely essential, if a decent life is to be provided for every human being.”

~~ John P. Holdren and co-authors

Holdren’s recommended solution is to “change unsustainable practices, reduce excessive material consumption, slow down population growth”. Is it really a surprise that the Obama administration wants to “de-develop” America? They are actively fighting against coal and oil production, putting numerous regulations on the backs of businesses, redistributing wealth, mandating free contraceptives, and seeking to ration life saving drugs and health services.

It’s not an accident. It’s part of the plan. The left just prefers to do these things by deception rather than by taking full credit for their actions.

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I have a feeling his life by high school was controlled to the point of his mentors steering him to just the right “friends” of like mindedness, so as to reinforce the ideology of their work in progress.

It’s more likely that he didn’t attended school in the US, even if someone were directing his associations it would yield a few acquaintenances.No one remembers him, there are no prom photos, no one, male or female says they dated him or traveled with him or even played on the playground with him. Obama is a construct, nothing real about him at all.

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Said it before, and I’ll keep repeating it. O******* STARTED this mess: Buycks-Robison v. Citibank!!! The 1995 settlement out of court? The very first BILLION dollar set aside for SUB-PRIME loans (which caused every other major lender to set aside $Billions for sub-prime as well!)!!! Guess who paid for the legal bills?? Your friends at ACORN!?! The lead attorney, Barack Hussein Obama!?! But because Slick Willie, you know, the first black president needed the Illinois vote, the then-Jackass-In-Chief signed an executive order in 1997, finally allowing Fannie and Freddie to suck up any old kind of horsecrap mortgage!?!

Look it up, folks. The present Jackass-In-Chief, with the help of his BFFs, ACORN, started this mess!?! Which, of course, also makes B. Hussein the LIAR-In-Chief as well!?!

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I’m still waiting for somebody to track down his drug dealers from his past, so they can be interviewed.

You know that if any Republican candidate for president admitted to being a coke-head, there’d be no effort spared to track down his suppliers — and if none could be found, then Dan Rather and Mary Mapes would just find some wacko off the street to claim that he was, and they’d run with it.

[Jolie Rouge]

12 Scary Debt Facts for 2012
By Jill Schlesinger | CBS MoneyWatch – Thu, Feb 16, 2012 4:44 PM EST

As President Obama unveiled the 2013 fiscal year budget, the nation's financial situation came back into sharp focus. Experts say partisan gridlock in Washington means the budget will probably go nowhere.

Considering this is an election year, however, expect politicians to harp on facts, figures and terms that most Americans weren't taught in high school. To help out, it's time to dredge up lots of scary facts to make you pay attention.

Before we get going, a quick primer on the number TRILLION:

* $1 trillion = $1,000 billion or $1,000,000,000,000 (that's 12 zeros)

* How hard is it to spend a trillion dollars? If you spent one dollar every second, you would have spent a million dollars in 12 days. At that same rate, it would take you 32 years to spend a billion dollars. But it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend a trillion dollars.

* And now, some scary facts about the debt and the deficit -- some basics:

* Deficit = money government takes in -- money government spends

* 2012 US deficit = $1.33 trillion

* 2013 Proposed budget deficit = $901 billion

* National debt = Total amount borrowed over time to fund the annual deficit

* Current national debt = $15.3 trillion (or $49,030 per every man, woman and child in the US or $135,773 per taxpayer)
OK, let's get started!

1. The U.S. national debt on Jan. 1, 1791, was just $75 million dollars. Today, the U.S. national debt rises by that amount about once an hour.

2. Our nation began its existence in debt after borrowing money to finance the Revolutionary War. President Andrew Jackson nearly eliminated the debt, calling it a "national curse." Jackson railed against borrowing, spending and even banks, for that matter, and he tried to eliminate all federal debt. By Jan. 1, 1835, under Jackson, the debt was just $33,733.

3. When World War II ended, the debt equaled 122 percent of GDP (GDP is a measure of the entire economy). In the 1950s and 1960s, the economy grew at an average rate of 4.3 percent a year and the debt gradually declined to 38 percent of GDP in 1970. This year, the Office of Budget and Management expects that the debt will equal nearly 100 percent of GDP.

4. Since 1938, the national debt has increased at an average annual rate of 8.5 percent. The only exceptions to the constant annual increase over the last 62 years were during the administrations of Clinton and Johnson. (Note that this is the rate of growth; the national debt still existed under both presidents.) During the Clinton presidency, debt growth was almost zero. Johnson averaged 3 percent growth of debt for the six years he served (1963-69).

5. When Ronald Reagan took office, the U.S. national debt was just under $1 trillion. When he left office, it was $2.6 trillion. During the eight Regan years, the US moved from being the world's largest international creditor to the largest debtor nation.

6. The U.S. national debt has more than doubled since the year 2000.

* Under President Bush: At the end of calendar year 2000, the debt stood at $5.629 trillion. Eight years later, the federal debt stood at $9.986 trillion.

* Under President Obama: The debt started at $9.986 trillion and escalated to $15.3 trillion, a 53 percent increase over three years.


7. FY 2013 budget projects a deficit of $901 billion in 2013, representing 5.5 percent of GDP, down from a deficit of $1.33 trillion in FY 2012, which was the fourth consecutive year of more than $1 trillion dollar deficits.

8. The U.S. national debt rises at an average of approximately $3.8 billion per day.

9. The US government now borrows approximately $5 billion every business day.

10. A trillion $10 bills, if they were taped end to end, would wrap around the globe more than 380 times. That amount of money would still not be enough to pay off the U.S. national debt.

11. The debt ceiling is the maximum amount of debt that Congress allows for the government. The current debt ceiling is $16.394 trillion effective Jan. 30, 2012.

12. The U.S. government has to borrow 43 cents of every dollar that it currently spends, four times the rate in 1980.

You can track the national debt on a daily basis here. http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin%3Fapplication=np


http://finance.yahoo.com/news/12-scary-debt-facts-for-2012.html

[Jolie Rouge]

Grin & Baier it: Debbie Wasserman Schultz tries to explain why the Senate hasn’t passed a budget in 1,091 days
By Doug Powers • April 25, 2012 04:40 PM

DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz was on Fox News last night, and Brett Baier asked her about the Dem-controlled Senate’s failure to pass a budget for a thousand days plus three months. The short answer from Wasserman Schultz was “because the Romney-Ryan budget is so horrifying we’re incapable of moving” (was Mitt elected President or to Congress and I missed it?).

Wasserman Schultz started talking about “process,” and Baier seemed to be one step away from digging up Schoolhouse Rock clips on YouTube to show DWS how Congress works. Baier put Debbie Downer through the wringer so effectively that it looks like her perm actually relaxed a bit during the interview: http://www.mrctv.org/videos/bret-baier-dismantles-dnc-chair-debbie-wasserman-schultz


**Written by Doug Powers http://michellemalkin.com/2012/04/25/wasserman-schultz/

[Jolie Rouge]

Obama's request projects a deficit in fiscal 2013 of $901 billion, down from $1.33 trillion this year, the officials said.

The numbers, both higher than the White House estimated in September, indicate a deficit equivalent to 5.5 percent of gross domestic product in 2013, versus 8.5 percent in 2012.

President Obama Sees First Budget Surplus Of Presidency
AP/The Huffington Post | Posted: 05/08/2012 8:40 am Updated: 05/08/2012 9:25 am

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/08/president-obama-budget-surplus_n_1499266.html?1336480828&ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009



(AP/The Huffington Post) The Obama administration saw its first monthly budget surplus in April http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/may/7/deficit-streak-ends-obama-first-monthly-surplus/ with the federal government recording $58 billion, according to figures released by the Congressional Budget Office. http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/2012_04_MBR.pdf


MarketWatch reports: http://www.marketwatch.com/Story/Story/?guid=%7BF92BDEEE-9873-11E1-A089-002128049AD6%7D

The surplus -- the first of Barack Obama’s presidency -- was the result of both increased tax collection and lower government spending.

Prior to April, the federal government's last surplus dates back to September 2008.


Pressuring Congress, President Barack Obama is laying out an election year "to do" list Tuesday that urges lawmakers to take another look at economic proposals to promote job creation and help families refinance their mortgages.

The White House said Obama planned to discuss the list during a stop at college science complex in Albany, N.Y. It's the president's latest attempt to portray congressional Republicans as obstructing his economic agenda at a time when millions of Americans are out of work. Obama has sought to tie Republican Mitt Romney to GOP leaders in Congress, arguing that the likely GOP presidential nominee would simply rubber-stamp their policies.

Obama's wish list includes a number of proposals that he has outlined previously but have failed to gain traction in Congress. They include eliminating tax incentives for companies that ship jobs overseas and promoting new tax credits for small businesses and for companies to develop clean energy.

For veterans, Obama planned to press Congress to pass legislation creating a Veterans Job Corps to help service members returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan find work as police officers and firefighters. And to address the housing crisis, Obama was expected to press anew on a measure designed to help homeowners refinance their homes at lower interest rates. Obama was making the housing pitch during a stop Friday in Reno, Nev., the state that has been the epicenter of the nation's housing meltdown.

Obama was issuing his list during a stop at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering at the State University of New York. The president has made a number of trips to universities, manufacturing plants and technology firms, seeking to promote research and development.

Republicans said they had a lengthy list of their own in the form of bills that have cleared the GOP-led House but remained bogged down by Senate Democrats. They accused Obama of recycling old ideas. "We've passed nearly 30 jobs bills to increase American competitiveness, expand domestic energy production and rein in the red tape that is burdening small businesses. Democrats are blocking every one of them," said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

White House spokesman Jay Carney, without detailing the specifics of Obama's trip to Albany, said Monday that Congress was under increasing pressure to approve measures to help the economy. "Every member of the House is up for election this year and a third of the Senate, and each of those members who are running for re-election has to explain to his or her constituents what they did while they were in Washington these last two years. Did they just say no?" Carney said.



comments

Income tax returns, and payments, are due in April.......every year. If you owe money, instead of getting a refund, you don't pay until the last minute (April). So all the tax "collections" go WAY UP in April, meaning that if the government spends carefully that month, there will be a TEMPORARY SURPLUS. The government is about $950 billion in the red (deficit) so far this year, but the story is all about a one-month surplus of $58 billion. What a bunch of hyped c--p!!! [That means now our ANNUAL DEFICIT for FY-2012 is "only" about $892 billion.] And OBTW, the deficit problem is caused by OVERspending by BOTH political PARTIES.

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ONE month's surplus, and how many months has he been in office and we had how many months of surplus? But the facts that seem to get pushed to the back are as follows, Un-Employment rose to it's higest level under Obama, and that was after the Stimulus was to keep it 7 to 8%, 6.3 million Americans are now off the roles of the Un-Employed, out of benifits. The National Debt was at 10.5 Trillion when Obama took office, now at 15.6 Trillion. Our GDP average under Obama under 3%(which indicate recession). Passed Obamacare with little things we are now finding out about, like the 3.6% tax on when you sell you home stating 1/1/13, but as Ms Pelosi said, "We ahve pass it to see what's in it". The Economy is not better, but to the true believer's it doesn't matter.

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Considering the Senate has not passed or even presented a budget for over 3 years - I find this truly amazing! More of the liberal "fuzzy math" at work I'm sure!

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Funny math can provide any answer, or result that you want. Where is the budget plan that is supposed to originate from the Dem controlled Senate? How can Obama take another "victory lap" when his own budget proposal includes $1Trillion dollars in deficit spending and funds borrowed from China? Come on Huff Post, not all of us get our news from (P)MS-NBC, or are fully functioning CNN-Nitwitts. Furthermore, some of us did pass math in HS and college.
Budget/revenue surplus? Really? Get real!!!

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It sure doesn't add up. $1 trillion plus deficit for the year but there is a surplus for the month? They must be shifting the monthly deficit to the next month. So we will see a larger than expected deficit next month. No savings, just smoke and mirrors.

[Jolie Rouge]

October 15, 2012

An Administration In Denial


"This President has demonstrated his commitment to diplomatic security through his budget priorities."

- WH Spokesman Jay Carney


After being lobbed The World's Biggest Softball by Carney, apparently no one in the room thought to bring up what may well be the defining achievement of the Obama Presidency. For the entire time he's been President, the United States government hasn't had a budget: http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/29/opinion/johnson-budget/index.html


President Barack Obama and his administration seem to view budgeting as just one more political maneuver. His efforts have been so completely unserious that the President's 2012 budget was rejected by a vote of 97-0 in the Senate. And three weeks ago, when Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-South Carolina, sponsored a budget proposal based on Obama's 2013 budget plan, it lost in the House by a vote of 414-0.


That's right, not a single member of Congress cast a vote in favor of Obama's last two budgets. That is a stunning repudiation of his leadership. What it really represents is a total abdication of leadership.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsCbQIi0psI&feature=player_embedded

How does a President get away with hiding behind a budget that doesn't even exist? Such shameless prevarication can only work when no one will challenge you.

[Jolie Rouge]

Oct. 29 marks three and a half years to the day since the Senate passed a budget
12:20 PM 10/29/2012

As of Monday, the federal government has operated without a formal budget for three and a half years.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid “last adopted a budget on April 29th, 2009,” according a press release from the Senate Budget Committee’s Republican staff. “A budget requires only 51 votes to pass and yet the Majority has refused to even meet its legal obligation to draft one,” said the release, which was released on Monday.

The debt has risen from $11.2 trillion to $16.2 trillion in the last three and a half years, according to their analysis.

A Wall Street Journal editorial published on October 28 called, “Harry Reid’s Graveyard,” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203611404577042181534236806.html targets the Senate Majority Leader for inaction since 2010. “The Senate failed to pass any budget in 2012. Or 2011. Or 2010. The Senate hasn’t passed a budget in more than 1,200 days,” the editorial says.

“Sorry, Harry, you can’t blame that on a Republican filibuster, because it takes only 51 votes to pass a Senate budget resolution,” it continued.

After the Republican-controlled House passed Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s budget, House Speaker John Boehner repeatedly challenged Reid to follow suit. “You know, it was Steny Hoyer a couple of years ago who said the most important part of governing is doing a budget. Senate Democrats have not done a budget for three and a half years,” Boehner said on September 21 before Congress went out of session. “How about the 40 jobs bills that are sitting in the United States Senate? The House is the only body to have passed a bill to stop all of the coming tax hikes.”

Boehner argued that leadership is in the Senate is nonexistent. “The House is the only body that’s passed a bill to stop the sequester. We have done our work but here, Senate Democrats and the president — where is their responsibility? Where is their leadership? It just doesn’t exist,” he said.


Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/10/29/oct-29-marks-three-and-a-half-years-to-the-day-since-the-senate-passed-a-budget/#ixzz2AiKx5fMI

They'll make the excuse that the Republican controlled House prevented them from being able to get to an agreement on the budget. What they'll hope we forget is that they had the House too through the end of 2010. None of these clowns really care about us...the regular people. Instead of finding a way to work together for the good of our country, the Dems have decided to stall and hope to regain control of the House in 2012...and the Repubs have been waiting to get Obama out. They can't do this forever or else we're totally screwed!

Romney will win next week...I truly believe this. He'll have a Republican controlled House and Dem controlled Senate. He'll have an immediate opportunity to show us whether he can bring them all together to get at least a budget out of congress. He'll have four year to prove that he can be an effective president to push the agenda of the Unites States. If he doesn't...we'll fire him too!