Official: Obama to call for 5-year spending freeze

I'll see your 2008 and raise you 2000. We always hear complaints about the Bush spending, so let's go back a to pre-Bush budget. End the wars... repeal the Medicare thing. What else did Bush spend on? Dump it!

If everything Bush did was wrong (and I agree with some of it), get rid of it.

If Obama is serious, and not just trying to paint himself as a moderate, he would have no trouble CUTTING spending, not just freezing it ... after he spent a couple of Trillion.

The couple trillion you reference was partially spent by Bush via TARP, which GWB signed into law. Also a lot of that spending President Obama did in the first 2 years was to stimulate the economy. It has done a little, but with the business community not investing in American jobs, and record cash reserves, it can be a bit difficult to prime that pump. There are numerous factors but I am all for cutting in areas that need to be cut, the military/defense department and/or industry, and raise taxes to increase revenue by eliminating the bush tax cuts and reinstating the estate tax to previous levels.

The couple trillion you reference was partially spent by Bush via TARP, which GWB signed into law.

I wasn't talking about TARP. It's fortunate we got some of TARP money back. I was talking about the multiple "Stimulus" packages that we did NOT get back.

Also a lot of that spending President Obama did in the first 2 years was to stimulate the economy.

Completely unnecessary. And if that raised the budget by X dollars... then he "freezes" the budget, he basically expects to spend the equivalent of the Stimulus money this year and next. That doesn't sound fiscally responsible to me.

It has done a little, but with the business community not investing in American jobs, and record cash reserves, it can be a bit difficult to prime that pump.

Prime the pump is Keynesian logic. It doesn't work and hasn't worked. Business are holding their cash for many reasons. Government policy is a big one.

I am all for cutting in areas that need to be cut, the military/defense department and/or industry

I agree with certain cuts in Defense.

and raise taxes to increase revenue by eliminating the bush tax cuts

First of all, the Government is able run quite well without personal income tax. Or at least would if they stuck to their mandate as spelled out in the Constitution. The fact that so many believe the LIE that the Government owns a portion of our labor is mind boggling.

That said, thanks to the Progressive Woodrow Wilson, we are being forced with the threat of violence to hand over a percent of our labor. Bush lowered the rate from what Clinton had. Obama has the power to raise it. But there is no "FAIR" rate. Any rate greater than zero is theft of our property.

Because the American people for the past couple of generations ALLOWED this to happen, if we don't fix it, the problem will just be passed on to our children and grand children.

Until the Government shows they are willing to CUT this ridiculous spending and pay down our debt, I am NOT in favor of higher tax rates. They will only spend it.

If, by some miracle, we get a Government serious about cutting spending and paying down debt... then I will gladly do my part to help.

and reinstating the estate tax to previous levels.

Balderdash! The Government has no more right to claim your personal property when you die than it does when you are alive. It's theft. Just because you or I will never make enough to qualify, does not mean we should sit back and let it happen to others. What if a Republican or even someone from the Socialist or Communist party gets elected some day... and makes it 100% of ALL estates. Is that what you want? Work all your life in the hopes of leaving something for your heirs only to have the Government confiscate it? The final nail in the coffin of Freedom.

$100 billion? didn't Obama spend over a $trillion last year? $100 billion won't even wet the bottom of the bucket.

LOL... this reminds me of the wife. she will come home after spending 300 dollars shopping for blouses and shoes and tell me that we need to cut our spending.

sure we do, after you spent it.

anyway. I agree. these things need to be done. bring our men and women home from the foreign wars and foreign posts. let Europe pay for its own security. stop trying to win hearts and minds and just kill OBL. tell iraq that its cheaper for us to go there every 10 years and destroy their military than it is to stay there for ten years so they can argue over who gets to steal the most from the government (ours and theirs).

1) The stimulus made sure that we didn't go into a depression worse than the Great Depression. It helped create and/or save millions of jobs. Our economy would have gone spiraling out of control causing massive unrest. The unemployment rate would be much higher, our economy would be weaker, and it gave millions of Americans money in their pockets to pay the bills so to not exacerbate the problem even further. This has been a point proven to be true by countless economists on the right and left side of the political spectrum.

2)Priming the pump is a term that is used to describe on part of Keynesian economics, a brand I do not subscribe to, nor capitalism. I believe in a mixed market economy, which is part state part private ownership. Keynesian economics and Capitalism/ free trade economics do not work on their own. Our economy is not pure free market nor is any countries in the world, nor should there be. There would be no labor laws, no protections against business aggression against the public, or wrong doing. It would be Gilded Age capitalism on crack. My point being, both don't work.

3) Im glad we can find some agreement on defense spending.

4) Article I Section 8

"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes... "

The US Congress has the right to lay tax on anything it sees fit. That tax must be passed by both chambers of congress and signed by the President to become law, as we just saw with the recent tax extension package by President Obama. A constitutional amendment was passed allowing the income tax which means the congress had to pass this by a 2/3 vote as well as be ratified by 3/4 of the states. This is an extremely difficult process that is not done lightly. The income tax was debated all the way back to the war of 1812 in order to pay for the soldiers and their expenses. This is something that the founding fathers were pretty decided upon.

4) If you enjoy the weather channel, the interstate, clean water and food, a strong military, etc etc, then taxes are needed. That is why the Constitution was written, because the Articles of Confederation, the first governing document of the US, did not afford the federal government that right. This caused the US to be unable to pay the soldiers of the revolutionary war and was a big enough reason, among others, to sit down and pen a new founding document, one that gave more power to the federal government to pay for the services it provided. This is not about Wilson or Progressivism. This is a fundamental government function/issue that has been debated for countless centuries. Name one nation that does not have taxation in the post-industrialized, or even industrialized world and has a solvent and functioning government, there are none. Taxes are needed, the question is how much.

5) As I stated before, I am all for cutting spending and reducing our debt. However, neither republican or democrat is serious about cutting the deficit and being fiscally conservative. The concept of being a fiscal conservative began to die in the 1980s with Reagan and the massive debt he raked up. George H W Bush did nearly the same thing. It wasn't until Clinton that we began to balance our books which was short lived when GWB came into office. Neither party has a claim to being fiscally conservative, which is why I get angry when people propagate that the GOP is serious this time. Show me one time when they were and let me do some follow up research to prove it, and if it all works out, then maybe I will give a shred of credibility. However, their track record is atrocious.

6) The estate tax does not claim your property when you die, it taxes the estate for the next generation. There will never be a socialist or communist party that could ever gain any strength in the US. The fact that you are mentioning those two ideologies is proof of that. They are buzz words that in America cause an automatic response to fight. I do not see the slippery slope argument as a viable one for this tax and here is why. What other tax has gone from one segment of the population to all of them, from one bracket to all, in US history, how about the last 100 years. The answer, as far as I am aware (if you prove me wrong I will be more than happy to eat crow), is none. When taxes are created they are levied on one specific group as usually a sin tax or on all as a direct tax, in varying levels. There have been taxes that have increased their scope, more brackets included, over time, and some that have shrank. However there has never been a tax that has gone from one group of people to all tax brackets. Not all taxes that are aimed at one specific group are sin taxes, btw. They are indirect taxes, this is an example of it.

7) One quick last point-

Taxes are essential in a country such as the United States. With our size, our population, resources, military might, infrastructure, there is no way to avoid being taxed, at what the public feels, are egregiously high levels. No one enjoys paying taxes. However when a hurricane strikes in New Orleans the state of LA cannot handle that task on it's own, it needs federal assistance. When an oil spill happens in the gulf of mexico the states affected by this man made disaster cannot manage this burden on their own, they need the federal government. When we went to the moon, it was tax payer dollars that afforded us that mission. When we go to Mars, and all the research and funding that is required, it will be on the tax payers dole. When the FDA demands a recall of over 3 million cartons of eggs because of a salmonela risk, saving thousands of peoples of lives potentially, it is the tax payer that affords the workers to protect us against hidden dangers. When our men and women come home from over seas suffering from ptsd to amputated limbs and life in a wheel chair, it is our tax payer dollars that funds the treatment for our heroes.

Our tax payer dollars are needed for us to sustain the life style we currently enjoy. Without these tax dollars we would be stuck back in the industrial era, back where India is right now, or China. If we want to continue to keep living the American dream we have to sit down and look at our budget not with an axe but a knife and cut out bit by bit wasted tax payer dollars and appropriate them in a position to do the most good. We need to save money and get our books balanced by raising taxes and cutting spending. Taxes are what keep the United States economy and government running. The concept of starving the beast is suicide for the US government, as a nation, and it's people.

Apparently, I can;t count at the moment lol. There are two number 4s. I must have missed it when looking up. My apologies.

#1 And my not going to work today, saved 500 people from dying in a horrible traffic accident. You can't prove a negative. Cutting spending has worked in the past. Spending has only prolonged the recession/depression in the past. I'll go with NOT spending.

#2 All we need are good anti- aggression laws. Not the tons of favorable laws and regulations that currently stifle competition.

#3 Agreed, but I still want a strong defense... just not a world police, pre-emptive war, nation building foreign policy.

#4 It was never meant for person income or estate. That's a Progressive idea, sold to a gullible public.

#4b The Free Market is capable of providing me with my local weather, clean water, food, etc. The Constitution says the Federal government should defend the nation and run the highest court. Just about every thing else is given to the States.
The Government ran for 100 years without personal income taxes. There are business taxes, import levies and even land leases that all bring a nice chunk of change into the Government. More than enough for defense and roads.

#5 I'm with on pointing the finger at both parties. Which is why the Tea Party people have been yelling so loud. And why they are trying to inspect candidates closer than in the past. The cards are stacked against a third party, so the tea party seems to be working within the Republican party... probably because at one time in the distant past, their platform was more in line with the current Tea Party platform. whatever.. I just stay undeclared and vote for the guy MY RESEARCH puts on top.

#6 (Estate Tax) same thing. (Socialist Party) Don't bet on it. Twenty years ago no one would ever openly admit they were Socialists. Now it happens all the time. It's "cooking frogs" thing. Heat the water slow enough and they won't jump out. And my point was, be careful about the laws you pass, because somone with opposing views could come to power and use those very laws against you. My example may seem extreme, but it could happen. It happens in other countries all the time. Power hungry men working the system, climbing in power... and boom... one emergency and you see their real colors. They COULD use existing laws, like the estate law, and expand it to everybody in an effort to amass more power.

#7 (taxes) you have been trained to believe that. Have you ever read the story about Congressman David Crockett and Horatio Bunce? Many of the things you quote as being "necessary" are not authorized in the Constitution. Feel Good, yes. Charity, yes. But not the Government's job. Let each politician pass the hat in their own communities.. starting with their own wallet.. but don't take it out of the public dole.

We need some morality, virtue, self respect and accountability. We need to evaluate all those "services" to see which are absolutely necessary and which are a waste of money. Which could be handled better by private industry.

What about all the tax give-aways to big oil and other corporations. Those need to be closed immediately. Part of the speculation as to why the GOP was not going along with the 9/11 health care bill was because the way to pay for it was going to be via closing a tax loophole allowing corporations to use tax havens. I can't tell you for sure this is why, but it does look fishy.

The point I am trying to make is that we do need to make some cuts. We need to balance our budget as much as possible immediately. However, you also don't want to cut off your nose to spite your face. This needs to be a gradual cut back so we don't go into economic shock again. In order to achieve that we need to slowly raise taxes and slowly make some cuts in programs and subsidies etc. Everyone always screams about our social services such as medicare and social security. Let's not forget the tax loop holes and give aways to corporations. Big Oil is notorious for not paying any annual income tax to the US government, meanwhile we are telling people we are going to take away their medicare and social security... something is wrong with that picture. Let's take both approaches and find a middle ground so we can ease into a more fiscal position rather than nosedive and possibly risk doing more damage than good.

onevoice. i agree with the raising of taxes, but I would have to say that I would prefer to see that the government can CUT spending before I hand them more money.

remember paygo..... only raised the debt ceiling. did not cut spending.

this is how I would tackle the federal budget. First restructure the tax code and make it more simple. For instance make the first 25k of income federal tax free (an individual income tax on just individual, no filing married, head of houseold ect, with an over lower fica tax, but expanded on incomes up to 250k. Put in a a surcharge, or a more progressive tax rate on those who make over a million dollars, lets say at a rate of 50% and for those who make over 10 milllion a 70% tax rate.

Second, cut every duplicate agency and program in the federal government. Third cut defense spending by 25% accross the board except pay and benefits for soldiers.

We do need to means test social security, and folks who already have a retirement and pensions and own thier own house cars and other properties will have thier payments reduced.

we need to be serious about spending, but we also need to be serious about giving working folks the chance they need to get ahead by rewarding work.

California Militia -

I understand your point and empathize about before being taxed, show you are serious about cutting the budget/deficit.

Unfortunately that is not a reality in today's politics. Every single penny is fought and paid for by a special interest group behind closed doors. That means that as long as the special interests are driving the budget it will only continue to increase. Until this systemic corruption is eliminated we will continue to have an increasing federal budget, no matter what party is in power.

real michaud -

I was getting ready to write out points about each one of yours and found myself unable to write any considering I completely agree with every single measure you wrote. These are all practical and probable solutions to our fiscal problems. The only problem is in order to get this done you need to cut out special interests in the budget writing process... that, as of right now, is impossible. Got any suggestions on that matter?

the federal government cant fix special interest. The states must take this up with a constituional amendment. First no foreign money, and corporations can not set up any PACs or give any money to candidates for federal election. Second house members and Senators can only accept money from individuals from residents of thier perspective states.

The states must force campaign and political reform thru a constitutional amendment. The federal government will not do it.

Touche - We may have to bail out the states... that is one issue not being talked about too often. We have never had a state "fail". It would be unprecedented and put the entire US's credit on the line. If we were willing to bail out a few big banks, I don't see why we wouldn't bail out the states... even though the Fed said they won't...

In any case if a state does fail, that will probably be another bailout, which will be tough to pass.

It's been on my mind after hearing all the talk about it!

There are some states "towing the line" and making it work.

Chris Christie is busting his behind for his state, and things, although slowly, are getting better. It can work if congress and the administration would put their "Nose to the grind stone" for a change.

And , NO, I don't live in that State, but, I love the "Matter of Fact" from Christie.

I don't know if NJ will be such a great success story. I know that Camden just cut their police force and a lot of other programs. Camden is not an area that should be cutting the police force. It's a pretty bad area from my understanding. There are also some other cuts that have made me a bit suspicious of Christie and what his beef with labor is. The man absolutely despises unions from what I've read. Unions do have their problems, but to take a stance as rigid as he has against teachers... that I think is absurd. I will be the first to tell you, unions need reform, including the teachers union. However, going on a rampage against unions, and pensions, to blame for this fiscal crisis is complete crap. It was not teachers unions and pensions that got us in this fiscal hole. If you look at the rainy day funds for all the states, they had the largest amount in their history. Then when the financial collapse occurred, so did their rainy day funds. Now all that capital is gone and you don't have any money to pay your employees and pensions. So who does the right blame, those who are at risk of losing their pension... it makes no sense. Those to blame are the ones that ran the mortgage ponzi scheme, those on wall street, the big banks, the ones who just got their tax cuts extended due to unprecedented amounts of money thrown at congress via lobbying.

I am not stating that all of the problems lie with corporations and wall street, but to blame the unions and government employees for this mess (which I am not stating you are, Christie is), is a lie. Sure they may have some small bit to blame, government getting to big and all, but it was not the cause and should not suffer to the level that is being suggested by Christie and those who support his style of governance.

The man absolutely despises unions from what I've read

Not really.

He just thinks they should buckle down for a change, and pay for perks like we do!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkuTm-ON904

He asked Teachers unions to pay for a percentage of their 100% funded Health Insurance, Like we do, Again. I don't find that a bad idea, would you?

As far as the "Schumer Tunnel", he couldn't justify New Jersey Having to make up for the over runs, as would be required, if it went through (billions). Again, A good thing for the tax payors.

He explains things here, quite well:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVu_4wnVZrU&feature=related

I will have to take a look a little further into his stance. I have mostly read op-eds on him and have done a little but not enough research, apparently, to state he is that strong against unions. I will have to read his speeches etc.

However, his whole policy of saying we need cuts in pensions as well as unions, and trying to lay blame on them for the fiscal problems of their state, as I stated previously that is not the case, remains true. It is a common GOP concept that is complete crap. It is relying on America's amnesia of the housing collapse and the economy to blame the government, thank you Reagan, for the current economic situation. It is a masterful spin job paid for quite handsomely as well.

Don't get me wrong, this goes on the left too, but in a little different manner, but blaming the economy on the government and the federal worker... come on, that's just low when you are trying to cut their pensions and restructure unions all the while bolstering big business.

You seem to forget the "Fannie and Freddie" are just fine mantra, from the democrats in 2007 thru 2008, especially from Frank and Dodd.

Was even occuring as far back as 2004:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs

Barney was the best on this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC88oox9TBo

Now he thinks Fannie and Freddie should be abolished after his little protection rants for Freddie and Fannie

Frannie and Freddie were in cohouts with all the big banks and all those inflating the housing bubble.

A basic breakdown of what happened can be roughly, and by roughly I mean as rigid as imaginable,

Reagan came in and made government the enemy, starve the beast

The 90's brought the Contract from America and the Republican Revolution, which deregulated wall street and allowing too big to fail to become possible.

After the stock market tech crash and 9/11 Housing was pushed by the WH and the Congress, and was taken advantage of by both parties, including Dodd and Frank. Wall Street boomed, grew too big due to corruption and greed etc etc, and the bubble bursts.

It was the collusion between corporate interests and the government to make gobs of money off the average tax payer that needs to be held responsible. Your elected politician who takes money from special interests so they can run those campaign ads we all love, and the special interest that paid for that ad are the ones culpable for our current economic situation.

Ever known more regulation or de-regulation, changing anything?

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/who_caused_the_economic_crisis.html

The Real Deal

So who is to blame? There's plenty of blame to go around, and it doesn't fasten only on one party or even mainly on what Washington did or didn't do. As The Economist magazine noted recently, the problem is one of "layered irresponsibility ... with hard-working homeowners and billionaire villains each playing a role." Here's a partial list of those alleged to be at fault:

• The Federal Reserve, which slashed interest rates after the dot-com bubble burst, making credit cheap.
• Home buyers, who took advantage of easy credit to bid up the prices of homes excessively.
• Congress, which continues to support a mortgage tax deduction that gives consumers a tax incentive to buy more expensive houses.
• Real estate agents, most of whom work for the sellers rather than the buyers and who earned higher commissions from selling more expensive homes.
• The Clinton administration, which pushed for less stringent credit and downpayment requirements for working- and middle-class families.
• Mortgage brokers, who offered less-credit-worthy home buyers subprime, adjustable rate loans with low initial payments, but exploding interest rates.
• Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who in 2004, near the peak of the housing bubble, encouraged Americans to take out adjustable rate mortgages.
• Wall Street firms, who paid too little attention to the quality of the risky loans that they bundled into Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS), and issued bonds using those securities as collateral.
• The Bush administration, which failed to provide needed government oversight of the increasingly dicey mortgage-backed securities market.
• An obscure accounting rule called mark-to-market, which can have the paradoxical result of making assets be worth less on paper than they are in reality during times of panic.
• Collective delusion, or a belief on the part of all parties that home prices would keep rising forever, no matter how high or how fast they had already gone up.

Seems to make sense!

greg, the deal with what has happened to the economy, and more to the point our society, is that the social and moral contracts have been broken. It started with the "Reagan Devolution".

The GOP asks to put a spending freeze on as well as cuts, and Obama follows their lead. Is it the price that you have a problem with or is it anything Obama does. You do realize GWB spent more than any other President in US history, including Obama up to this point, right? Also you do realize that the czars you reference were called czars under GWB as well. Where were the calls for fiscal responsibility when GWB was in office, where was the call for authoritarian control due to czars and over reach of presidential power then? There weren't any, or too few to be heard.

When one party commits the crime, a blind eye is turned. When the other party does it, it's treason and the President should be impeached. Are we 5 years old? Both sides do it... let's get out of the sand box and start acting like adults and admitting we are playing childish games at the expense of our nation. Sheesh...

There were all kinds of people, myself, Hannity, Limbaugh, Levin, etc included screaming for Bush to stop spending - he bacame a beltway insider and was spending his way to popularity and probably to keep the dems voting for the war. Bush was wrong to spend as much as he did but obama seems to be using that as an excuse to keep spending - shame on him.

As for the tsar's no president had as many as obama and no president ever kept their duties and salaries a secret.

Greg -

Can you provide some video, audio, or text of either Hannity, Limbaugh, Levin, any big whig conservative ideologue calling for Bush to stop spending, before TARP was being considered. I would love to see it, and I do mean that in earnest. I hope you did call out to stop the spending when he was in office. I have called out my relatives numerous times on this stating where were they when Bush was in office spending two wars on credit, or giving tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans with no way to make up that lost revenue. I have heard very very few instances of such and thus why I am curious to see any examples of the big wigs screaming for fiscal solvency before the economic crisis.

Obama has a different economic view that is more towards the middle than many on the right believe. He is by no means liberal when it comes to fiscal issues. I honestly often laugh when people call him socialist or communist.

However here is the argument for his strategy roughly...

You have a balloon. That balloon is the economy. The economy is inflated with air, or capital/assets. With the recession and housing crisis, a ton of air went out of the balloon. This can severely harm an economy and can cause a complete deflation if not stopped. Once again if you are holding the balloon closed with two fingers and let some air out you can generally control the air flow. However if you let the balloon out of your hand completely, it will go flying all over the place until out of air and lands on the ground. What Obama was attempting to do was hold onto the balloon, which he barely had control of, grab it, shut off the air flow, and attempt to temporarily blow the balloon back up with government cash, that the business community no longer had due to the recession. This sustains the balloon but it will cause long term problems if the private sector does not get on it's feet. That is what the President is doing now with all of these business initiatives since the mid terms.

The czars are a part of government. Government has never stopped growing as long as the United States has been a country with the one exception of the civil war, and even that is debatable. The larger country we become the more advisers, because that's what czars are, chairs of agencies that are paid on the tax payers dole, there will be. If they were called czars during Clinton's term, which I believe they may have been at the end, he would have had less than Bush.

Also, the whole their salaries aren't released, can be found on wikianswers among other places. Worst comes to worst file a FOIA request and you will get it. Everything else around the czars brought up by newsmax, judicial watch, and glenn beck, it's a bunch of political theater. It's a buzz word to pluck the heart strings of conservative America that was alive during the cold war. Czars came from Russia, Russia is Communist, Cold War. The degrees of separation are way too close to discount. It is a fear tactic. The left has them the right has them, this is one example from the right. If you would like to see a good example of how both sides do this, watch Jon Stewart's little bit last night. He ripped a democrat for comparing republicans to Nazis, and then ripped Fox News for saying they never have aired such comparisons to Nazis on their station... which is complete and utter crap haha. In any case, this is another one of those, scare the base tactics that is a sad condescending demeaning example of a right wing scare tactic.

I don't have time to look up video but you should recall that everyone on the right went nuts when Bush was doing his prescription drug coverage and when he joined with Kennedy on the No Child left Behind crap, just to name two instances that pissed off the right.

And how many vacations to his ranch did Bush make?

bush didn't spend his ranch vacations as obama did on an all inclusive resort stay in hawaii, or did mrs. B take 300 freinds in a 2 week all inclusive trip to a resort spa in spain, or did bush take 3000 people and 2-3 big airplanes on a useless travelogue to india and asia..---bush's vacations WERE AT HIS HOME !!!

Your first sentence said it all.

I" don't like blanket calls for freezing spending for five years. Spending needs to be carefully reviewed, without a doubt. "

I completely agree. Let's use that scalpel he was talking about when running for office instead of a hatchet.

Afghanistan and Iraq were both put on the Credit Card.

Do you really want to play the game who can pee the furthest? Both parties do it.

That's the problem. It needs to STOP.