This is why the earth is heating up. Plastic bags and lot of hot air.
Analysis: Obama won’t try
for McCain’s budget goal.
By NEDRA PICKLER – 5 days ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Barack Obama says John McCain’s plan to balance the budget doesn’t add up. Easy for him to say: It’s not a goal he’s even trying to reach.
Not only does Obama say he won’t eliminate the deficit in his first term, as McCain aims to do, he frankly says he’s not sure he’d bring it down at all in four years, considering his own spending plans.
"I do not make a promise that we can reduce it by 2013 because I think it is important for us to make some critical investments right now in America’s families," Obama told reporters this week when asked if he’d match McCain’s pledge.
So what is more important in tough economic times? For the government to spend more to help hard-hit Americans or to eliminate a deficit that can lead to higher borrowing costs and slow the economy?
Whether it’s McCain the Republican or Obama the Democrat in the White House next year, the new president is likely to inherit an annual federal deficit exceeding $400 billion. Budget watchers say it’s hard to figure what either candidate’s impact will be since neither is offering full details of his spending programs.
"I think both candidates need to put some numbers on these things so we can get a sense of how realistic they are," said Robert Bixby of the Concord Coalition, a budget watchdog group.
Obama’s criticism of McCain’s pledge as "overly ambitious" is backed up by fiscal experts.
"Hypothetically it’s possible to get to a balanced budget by 2013, but not under the policies that McCain has proposed," Bixby said. "The policies he would propose would actually add to the deficit when you take them all together."
Jim Horney, director of federal fiscal policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said the center’s analysis, even assuming a fast drawdown of troops in Iraq, found McCain would have to cut around $400 billion worth of federal programs to balance the budget by 2013.
“It seems unlikely, particularly given that Senator McCain has not been willing to be specific about what programs he would cut,” Horney said. “And even if he were willing to, there’s a real question of whether the Congress or the public would go along with the kinds of cuts required to balance the budget, assuming the tax policies that he’s proposing.”
McCain says he would reduce spending by slowing the growth of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, but he hasn’t said how he would try to change the benefits. He also says he would slow the government’s spending growth and stop spending on lawmakers’ special earmarked projects. But earmarks accounted for just $17 billion of the $2.9 trillion budget this year.
Obama plans to raise $100 billion annually by increasing taxes on Americans making more than $250,000 a year, money that would be used to pay for health care and tax cuts for low- and middle-income earners. He has said ending the Iraq war would generate about $80 billion a year, but he’s not using that to pay down the deficit either. Instead, he said that money could help pay for more government programs like health care, education, housing and public safety.
"The problem there is that the Democrats have been very critical of President Bush for spending hundreds of billions of dollars on the war without paying for it and running up the deficit," Bixby said. "But in effect what Obama is saying is, `I’m going to spend the same amount of money. I’m just going to spend it on something else.’"
Obama’s economic policy director, Jason Furman, said the campaign will release a formal budget later in the year that explains his spending in greater detail. Furman added that “while we would like to balance the budget, we cannot say exactly when that will happen given the need to make important investments and the large amount of uncertainty in the economy.”
Bixby said even if Obama and McCain have ways to pay for their spending plans, the United States still has an unsustainable budget outlook because of rising costs for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
"It’s kind of like somebody building a porch on a house they can’t afford," he said. "This is the part of the budget that’s poised to explode over the next several years. And we really can’t afford all of these new initiatives that McCain and Obama are talking about because we haven’t figured out how to pay for what’s already on the table."
My View
At least McCain is attempting to get this country out of debt. At least McCain is not trying to increase the taxes for anyone. At least McCain is trying to cut all the wasteful pork that Washington spews out every year. At least McCain is trying to show people that living off of the government is not the way to go.
Obama on the other hand… He just wants more spending. If you though Bush was bad at spending money. Obama’s spending will DWARF that of Bush’s spending levels. People complain about how much Bush spent money, yet no one will complain about Obama’s spending. Remember the Government should NOT take care of you!
To the people who for some reason are too blind too see Barack Hussein Obama is truly a Marxist, just look at his two year record. Is it Social Security and Welfare really worth the increase of taxes and debt? My point of view. I say anyone over 45 is guaranteed social security. Anyone under that age should get start putting money away, of course with tax incentives.
Also people living on welfare, they would have six months to get off or be out on the street. I know there are people that truly need the help, and they should be helped. I just want to get the people who don’t work or try to find a job off welfare. These people need to be held accountable for their own financial situation, and they shouldn’t rely on my tax dollars!
Socialist Security
People, we Americans, do not understand how fragile the peace in the Middle East is. There is Israel, a Jewish State that is likened to in westerner invasion in the eyes of the Arab population. Then there are the extremist nations of Iran and Syria. Both have a deep hatred of the United States and Israel, and would rejoice if one or both fell. Of the two extremist nations, Iran is what I would consider a major threat. Not only is Iran seeking to become a nuclear power and is rattling its sabers.
