The good news and bad news about the budget
Filed under: Economy
President Obama's $3.55 trillion budget is like a dead deer on the side of the road being picked apart by a flock of vultures.As we speak, a battalion of Washington lobbyists, Wall Street analysts, think tank experts, congressional staffers, and people who find CSPAN entertaining are picking apart the spending plan, line item by line item. It's a process that's as exciting as it sounds.
At least one budget watchdog thinks Obama is doing the right thing. Robert Greenstein of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities called it "a bold and and courageous proposal to make progress in restoring fiscal discipline while addressing two central problems of our time - a broken health care system and the threat of catastrophic global warming - and other national needs."
In remarks to the press today, Obama argued that the government needs to approach the budget with the same discipline that citizens bring to their personal finances. At least, that's what people should do. Wall Street reacted coolly to the budget. The indexes were up this afternoon though they dropped at the end of the trading day.
"For too long, our budget has not told the whole truth about how precious tax dollars are spent," Obama said. "Large sums have been left off the books, including the true cost of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan."
Obama's talk of restoring fiscal discipline sounds "ironic" to the fiscal conservatives at Americans for Tax Reform who believe the spending plan is anything but that.
"It is certainly going to be interesting to see how this will play out," said Sandra Fabry, the group's director of government affairs, in an interview.
Obama's budget estimates that the federal budget deficit at $1.75 trillion, a figure The New York Times referred to as "stunning." He is pledging to cut the deficit in half by the end of his term, a pledge that many experts believe will be hard to keep.
One way Obama plans to close the funding gap is by "targeting $50 billion in savings by cracking down on overpayments of benefits and tax loopholes." For instance, Obama is proposing ending subsidies to student loan lenders such as Sallie Mae (SLM). Shares of Sallie Mae plunged today. He also is proposing ending subsidies to crop producers who earn more than $500,000.
He also is proposing almost $1 trillion in higher taxes on rich Americans such as Wall Street financiers, U.S.-based multinationals and oil companies to pay for permanent tax breaks for lower earners, Bloomberg News notes.
"Obama's 2010 budget proposal, released today, would reinstate the top two Clinton-era tax rates of 36 percent and 39.6 percent in 2011, up from the 33 percent and 35 percent the richest Americans now pay," the news service said. "It would raise taxes on capital gains and dividends to 20 percent for top earners, up from the 15 percent set by former President George W. Bush in 2003. "
There are some ambitious plans, including one to spend $15 billion a year for 10 years on alternative energy. The Washington Post notes that the $250 billion being added to the budget to shore up banks is considered a "placeholder." That is Washington talk for we hope not to have spend that money. But given how things have been going, odds are good that the money will not stay in place for long.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-27-2009 @ 5:33AM
Trini Sario said...
"For too long, our budget has not told the whole truth about how precious tax dollars are spent," Obama said. "Large sums have been left off the books, including the true cost of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan."
Amen.
http://www.cabin.com.my
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2-26-2009 @ 11:30PM
jay said...
Although the severity of the problem is daunting, the solutions are not that difficult. Clearly there needs to be a tax increase on those that can afford it. Cutting spending to the bone is number two. Flat out no earmarks whatsover unless they are job creating. Every State is broke and they can't afford anything, is the attitude the legislators should take. And third and most important give tons and tons of incentives to people to start and grow small business. Tax credits to fix up your house with energy efficient equipment and new roofs. Grants up to $25,000 for qualifying startups that create 5 or more jobs. Small business will lead the way whether it be up or down!
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3-01-2009 @ 10:48PM
RPB said...
Re Alan Wolfe's The Future Of Liberalism, whose mushy reviews Jonah and I were rolling our eyes over the other day, The New Criterion offers a more hostile critique from William D Gairdner. He includes this thigh-slapper by Wolfe in which the professor asks us to try to imagine a world without "liberalism":
Imagine a world in which religion (or irreligion) is coerced, freedom of speech curtailed, economic activity directed and controlled by the state, and no one [he means unions] allowed to organize and bargain collectively to improve their economic condition—and you have a political system that can only be called illiberal …
You don't have to imagine it. In Europe, Canada and increasingly America (see last Tuesday's speech, last Thursday's budget) once free peoples are living it. With the exception of the prohibition on collective bargaining, everything else is now a routine feature of life. Mr Gairdner writes:
Christianity... has been all but forced from the public square, and secular humanism is mandated by law and edict in its place (irreligion is coerced).
It might be truer to say that a collectivist state religion is "coerced". These days, it even has hymns: If you go to a grade-school "holiday" concert in America, you can't sing anything about God but there's usually some pseudo-spiritual dirge about how together we can feel the power of the circle of the dream of the circle of the hope of the dream that sounds like it came 23rd in a Write-Obama's-2012-Campaign-Theme competition.
As for freedom of speech:
All Canadian provinces and the federal government now have “Human Rights Commissions” that specifically, and with considerable zeal, curtail all speech that is not deemed sufficiently “liberal...” mini-Star Chambers dotted all across our once-free lands, everywhere fining people and mandating liberal “re-education” as a cure.
Economic activity "directed and controlled by the state":
Structurally, we are endangered because many of the Western democracies are becoming tripartite states in which one-third of all taxpayers are employed by government at some level, one-third of the people are crucially dependent in some way on government support (welfare, Medicare, Medicaid, farm subsidies, and a gazillion other untrackable support programs), and one-third produces the income (the tax base) paid out in supports for the first two-thirds. Anyone can see that, as this develops in a mass “democratic” system, the first two-thirds will always gang up on the last.
That seems vaguely relevant to the last week.
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