W.H. on Budget: $3.55 Trillion...With $17 Billion in Cuts

"Fortunately I went to college, so I'm among the 25% of "rich people" who pay 86% of federal income taxes, so my adjusted share comes to about $85K. Personally, I feel privileged to pay for so much "patriotism" and "fairness"."

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Your taxes will be going up 3% under this new budget. Calm down on the non-subtle sarcasm. Just because ppl go to college doesn't mean they shouldn't pay their fair share.

17 B cuts from 3.55 T budget..sort of like paying your bills with your credit card..

"This whole government budget mess is absolutely mind boggling. The kind of mindless reckless spending, cuts, re-alignment of our countries financial system, banks, Wall Street, all in such a short period of time is beyond unbelievable."

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Wall Street made extremely over-leveraged bets that nearly tanked the economy. They should be regulated as soon as possible.

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"All those in-charge have little to know experience in economics, especially Obama, and they are possibly creating a catastrophe we will not be able to recover from."

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Obama has an entire team of economists that brief him daily on the state of the economy with a combined total of 100 years of experience and knowledge on the subject. The head of that group...:arry Summers & Paul Volcker

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"Where are the meetings, discussions, debates, out in the open to discuss and plan such massive changes nobody knows will work. This is no way to run our country."

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Umm. C-SPAN 1,2,3...MSNBC, CNN, CNBC...

This whole government budget mess is absolutely mind boggling. The kind of mindless reckless spending, cuts, re-alignment of our countries financial system, banks, Wall Street, all in such a short period of time is beyond unbelievable. All those in-charge have little to know experience in economics, especially Obama, and they are possibly creating a catastrophe we will not be able to recover from.
Where are the meetings, discussions, debates, out in the open to discuss and plan such massive changes nobody knows will work. This is no way to run our country.

Dont' try to blame all of this new spending on the Republican. Remember that the democrats are the ones wasting all of our money and their puppet, Obama, just keeps signing his name. He has no ideal what he is doing to our nation. He wouldn't even support the "National Day of Prayer" , that has been around of decades. He wants to destory what America stands for.

Don't waste time trying to convince Republicans of anything, just use the Majority + The Bully Pulpit and let the Republicans rot.

They are incapable of accepting any reality that they do not approve of and facts that are not directly from the lips of Fox News/Rush Limbaugh/etc are unacceptable .

Mr Obama and the Democrats must shove the foolish greedy Republicans aside with a deserved look of disgust and get the job done for the good of the nation ,leaving the 27% ers to their (entertaining at first ,boring now) denial , whimpering and hair-pulling antics.

Republicans = Neutered and Useless

De-Nile = A river in Egypt

Denial = What Republicans do best

Obama has done plenty enough on earmark reform ,among other things.

Let the Republicans get themselves elected to a majority and then they can stop the practice since they started using it as a political means to an end to begin with. I hope Mr Obama uses earmarking as a weapon to further neuter the Republicans , just like they did when they were in office (and all the earmarking was done in private ,as opposed to now ).

I can only hope.

YOU GO MR OBAMA ,WE LOVE YOU!!!
LAY THE WOOD TO THE REPUBLICAN LIARS!!!

Change we can believe in.

"the president has made clear that fiscal discipline is another pillar of the economic foundation that we want to build."

That they can propose $3.5 trillion and then use the words "fiscal discipline" is pathological. Buckle up, people.

Hey, let's do some simple math...

Divide Obama's budget ("a new foundation for broad and sustained economic growth") by the 140 million federal tax payers, and it's only $25K each.

Fortunately I went to college, so I'm among the 25% of "rich people" who pay 86% of federal income taxes, so my adjusted share comes to about $85K. Personally, I feel privileged to pay for so much "patriotism" and "fairness".

But the real lucky people are those who are married and each make over $110K. They are among the 10% most patriotic who get to pay 70% of all federal income taxes. They owe at least $100K each.

God Bless America.

"But the President made clear that there have also been too many examples where earmarking led to corruption, and that while significant progress had been made in the last Congress there is still ample room for reform. "

I couldn't agree more. C'mon dems. You got the ball. What are you waiting for?

This is a joke...right? Money was cut from the budget? The budget has significantly increased! Only in a liberal's mind can an increase be a cut. And while the budget/deficit increase, the revenues to the government will decrease this year. Source - CBO

From whitehouse

But the President made clear that there have also been too many examples where earmarking led to corruption, and that while significant progress had been made in the last Congress there is still ample room for reform. He called on Congress to act this year on the principles he set forth, principles that Congressional analyst and historian Norm Ornstein called "a solid, practical and comprehensive set of new steps to take us much closer to the kind of meaningfully balanced system the American people deserve," adding that "The president's proposal is real reform." President Obama laid the principles out clearly:

In my discussions with Congress, we have talked about the need for further reforms to ensure that the budget process inspires trust and confidence instead of cynicism. So I believe as we move forward, we can come together around principles that prevent the abuse of earmarks.

These principles begin with a simple concept: Earmarks must have a legitimate and worthy public purpose. Earmarks that members do seek must be aired on those members' websites in advance, so the public and the press can examine them and judge their merits for themselves. Each earmark must be open to scrutiny at public hearings, where members will have to justify their expense to the taxpayer.

Next, any earmark for a for-profit private company should be subject to the same competitive bidding requirements as other federal contracts. The awarding of earmarks to private companies is the single most corrupting element of this practice, as witnessed by some of the indictments and convictions that we've already seen. Private companies differ from the public entities that Americans rely on every day –- schools, and police stations, and fire departments.

When somebody is allocating money to those public entities, there's some confidence that there's going to be a public purpose. When they are given to private entities, you've got potential problems. You know, when you give it to public companies -- public entities like fire departments, and if they are seeking taxpayer dollars, then I think all of us can feel some comfort that the state or municipality that's benefitting is doing so because it's going to trickle down and help the people in that community. When they're private entities, then I believe they have to be evaluated with a higher level of scrutiny.

Furthermore, it should go without saying that an earmark must never be traded for political favors.

And finally, if my administration evaluates an earmark and determines that it has no legitimate public purpose, then we will seek to eliminate it, and we'll work with Congress to do so.

Ahem...

"like when Bush tried to reform social security. That would have produced significant savings."

What Bush did was try to privatize social security, which when the stock market crashed would have bankrupted the program.

"Raising the retirement age for benefits would create savings."

At a time when millions of baby boomers are reaching the retirement age?

"He doesn't cut taxes, he creates new taxes and sends refund checks to people."

People that will spend the bulk of that money rather then save it thereby helping to stimulate the economy. That's why it's in the stimululus package in the 1st place. Most of that 180 billion is going to be spent.

"That doesn't decrease anyone's marginal tax rate, it just redistributes wealth."

Why is it called wealth redistribution when gov't tries to get money to trickles up instead of the usual theory of it's always best for cash to trickle down. The Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% while middle class wages remained stagnant over the past decade even though productivity grew by 20% was what?? Wall-street sucking up 40% of the nations GDP was what?? Large corporations and rich individuals hiding their money in tax shelters to avoid paying IRS, what euphemism can we label that one? How come it's only "class warefare and "wealth redistribution" when the rich feel threatened?

"It's hilarious that Democrats still bash Bush rather than actually support their own arguments."

The only reason ppl feel the need to keep refering to Bush is because even though he's out of office, his legacy from the state he left this country in will linger long after today. People are still suffering because of decisions he made, that's a fact.

Not all earmarks are bad but remember for years we didn't know who or what they were cause it wasn't even in the public record.

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And when did this practice change ,i.e. making earmarks public ?

Who/what caused it to change?

????

Hi Bill,

Earmarks exploded during a period when the elephants were in power but both parties were using them. Not all earmarks are bad but remember for years we didn't know who or what they were cause it wasn't even in the public record.

I don't know who gets what part of the blame for them and I don't care. I just want them to be eliminated because I do not trust our politicians to not abuse them.

Foghorn Leghorn ,

It's kind of wrong to let the Republicans earmark the nation into a depression for 8 years and then not allow the Democrats the same lever when it is their turn to lead. Perhaps the Democrats will use said earmarks to turn the economy around ,do they not get the chance?

Whoever said earmarks are a bad thing? Just like medicine ,the practice can be abused but to condemn it/deny it to the Democrats because the Republicans abused earmarking for years is just silly ,and sounds just like what most "moderates" (aka disenfranchised Republicans like Spector) are calling for .

When/if the Republicans ever get back in power check in and see if earmarks are even debated then...

"1) Was there ever a Republican administration that ran a budget surplus?"

No.
Our country has 66 trillion dollars in unfunded liablities. Budget surpluses are a shell game.

2) Was there ever a Democratic administration that repeatedly bold-faced lied to Congress and The Senate and The American Public to enact/bankroll any war ?

Yes. Woodrow Wilson.

3 ) Was there ever a Democratic administration that traded weapons for cocaine ,and lied (again) to Congress/The Senate/The American Public?

No.

4) Was there ever a Democratic sitting president who , by categorically well- documented facts, directly ordered (and approved of) outright felonies that were subsequently committed by his administration/his cronies ,e.g. Watergate?

No.

Sorry Mr. Leghorn ,you win.

Your stinging hyper-critical intellectual approach has won the day ,again.

Cheers!

"Mother Teresa and Charles Manson both suck ,and are equally bad humans.

See how much sense that makes Foghorn?"

It makes no sense. Why did you say it?

"They are not equal ,the common facts..."

The common facts or the well-documented facts?

"just don't support that assertion. Just like the facts don't support your assertion that the Democrats ,as a party/entity are as culpable or conniving as Republicans ,as a party/entity."

I didn't assert that. Why do you claim that I did?

"People like you generally don't have solutions , only complaints and half-truths ."

Eliminate earmarks. There's a solution. You with me?