Facing voter anger over mounting budget deficits, President Barack Obama will ask Congress to freeze spending for some domestic programs for three years beginning in 2011, administration officials said Monday. Separately, Obama unveiled plans to help a middle class “under assault” pay its bills, save for retirement and care for kids and aging parents.
The spending freeze would apply to a relatively small portion of the federal budget, affecting a $477 billion pot of money available for domestic agencies whose budgets are approved by Congress each year. Some of those agencies could get increases, others would have to face cuts; such programs got an almost 10 percent increase this year. The federal budget total was $3.5 trillion.
LOL - this is nothing. He has already raised them 50% from what they were before - freezing them now means nothing.
Inflation will be the big word during the 2012 election.
Even worse than his token spending freeze is that stupid grab bag of tax credits and assorted goodies to buy votes today with tomorrow’s money. Big surprise, a government official who thinks we’re too stupid to know what to do with a tax cut so government must collect the money first and then give it back to its favorite children. Obama and Ted Kanavas would get along handsomely.
Here’s a novel concept - if we’re going to drive up the deficit by increasing spending or slashing revenues disproportionately, let’s cut the payroll tax instead. At least then everyone who works gets some benefit.
Worse still is that this comes after last years $100 million fiasco indicating he didn’t learn anything the first time around.
After a year and a couple trillion dollars, I am almost shocked that Rahm and Axelrod would find it even remotely politically expedient to begin questioning the spending at this point. It’s almost like they are admitting that they have no idea what they are doing, when we all know that they had every intention of spending every penny they could get their hands on as fast as they could.
It’s almost like they are looking for a sympathy bounce in the polls, like a serial wife-beater begging for forgiveness… “We didn’t know that what we were doing was this bad, please forgive us, we’ll change.”
“The problem with a spending freeze is you’re using a hatchet where you need a scalpel” “That’s and example of an unfair burden sharing”
Now, who said that again?
All of a sudden hatchets are good? Unfair burden sharing is in? Will the lies and deception never stop with this bunch?
I think that quote is backwards
What that budget needs is a hatchet and not a scapel. Heck, with the stimulus funds that poured into those budgets, a freeze is like giving them another Christmas. You could cut out half of the money, and we’d still have government in places it shouldn’t be in the first place.