Among his many promises upon taking office, President Obama’s goal of cutting the federal deficit in half by the end of his first term is perhaps his loftiest.
Yet with each spending proposal Obama rolls out, the deficit grows astronomically and the American people are growing more concerned.
The president’s health care reform plan alone would more than double the already enormous 2009 deficit which is estimated at $1.8 trillion. But Obama is adamant that his plan must be “deficit neutral.”
“Like energy, this is legislation that must and will be paid for. It will not add to our deficits over the next decade. We will find the money through savings and efficiencies within the health care system,” he said on Tuesday.
Despite Obama making this pledge over and over again in past weeks, a series of recent polls indicate that Americans aren’t convinced:
[More]
Updates:
3:07 pm EDT, June 25th, 2009 — EXCLUSIVE: Bill gives billions to save trees in other nations
Obama is likely quite concerned that time is running out so quickly. He’s only got until 2010 to put the final nails in the lid of the American coffin. Congressional elections in November of that year IMO will result in the American voters dealing a punishing blow to the Dems and effectively put the brakes on Obama’s mad rush to drive that country into irreversible socialism.
This is really ironic actually. The “Governator” in California was so popular before when he was spending money but now Arnold has realized that he needs to cut back. California is going to need a bailout but won’t get enough. So they are cutting back like crazy to balance to budget. And now Arnold’s ratings are down. People love it when money is being spent and when there are lots of government services.
Obama is going to soon find out how the public will turn on him when he stops spending money. His charisma isn’t going to get him anywhere if he isn’t going to keep spending. If he thinks its hard now, just wait till the 2010 elections.
Can you imagine what the americans could have done for their poor if they hadnt wasted trillions on their ‘liberation of Iraq’ and space exploration?
Whats that old saying about ‘charity begins at home’ or something like that?
I honestly don’t see the point in going to Iraq and Space Exploration. Yea it may seem like wasted money to some, but seriously, what is done is done and we need to move on in regards to Iraq. For space exploration, the public would probably be ticked off if NASA lost its funding. NASA is important not only for its science value which also generates trillions of dollars (you have to spend money to make money), but it is also for entertainment purposes. The people love to hear about space and the discoveries.
Unfortunately yours is a moot point UV, because, as is always the case, the vast majority of that money would have never reached the poor, but would have instead gone to a vast array of special interest groups and overpaid unionized workers who feed off of benefits to the poor as if they were an industry, and therefore have never allowed much of a dent to be placed in overall levels of poverty. One only has to look to California or Ontario for examples of vast sums of money earmarked for the poor that never actually reaches them. Canadians didn’t go to Iraq or the moon but Ontario’s lefty debt is still closing in on $200 billion or almost half that which remains federally from Trudeau’s legacy. This means that Ontario taxpayers part with more than $30 billion dollars every year, even when interest rates are low, just to pay the interest on those debts, so they have already cost us more than double their original benefit to the poor. Further, has that money really made much of a dent in poverty here or has it instead gone to fuel ever more lucrative union demands?
The originally very non-partisan and therefore not so much George Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, cost about $12 billion dollars a month, or $144 billion dollars a year, or a little over one percent of total USA GDP, while the Bush administration’s budget deficits did not average much higher than that, which means that while the same spending problems that preceded Bush continued on through his administration, there was not much in the way of a structural deficit until the Democrats took control of Congress, and Obama later became President. Further, every administration since Reagan put an end to the cold war, has had the benefit of at least a few percent of total USA GDP in savings, that no longer goes to military spending on such items as staffing and maintaining bases in Germany. Is there any sign at all that those additional monies have gone to the poor? As Canadian taxpayers do, American taxpayers probably already pay more than enough taxes to provide security, research, and do much more for the poor, but we will never know because our inefficient, oversized governments waste most of those tax revenues long before they ever reach their intended destinations. Obama does not exactly appear to be the type to put an end to much of that big government waste.
And who is standing/speaking for the poor? Certainly not the left or the right.
Its all about priorities and I guess the poor just dont fit in on the priority list, especially native children. Canada’s shame.
The native children aren’t poor, UV. We’ve spent billions on them.
The problem is that all the money has been stolen.
Let’s focus a bit here if we can.
They’re obviously still poor if they didn’t receive it. That is the problem with government programs – there isn’t much left once the bureaucrats, consultants and self-appointed community leaders have been paid. The only reason this nonsense continues is that the other wing’s strategy consists of “cut the bums all off and let their lazy asses drown”. At least the programs sound nice.
Those native children are still poor and many are now sick with Swine flu due to poor/unsanitory living conditions. Thats where the focus should be. If the money has been stolen, then someone in authority should be doing something about it. This has been going on far too long. Its still Canada’s shame for allowing this to continue.
We can do better!
“We can do better!’
I agree completely.
When I worked with aboriginal people we were required to get a tuberculosis check whenever it was necessary, can’t remember every how many years. Why? Because of the high incidence of TB within the population we were interacting with on a daily basis. This problem had been in existence for many years and yet failed to get much attention. It’s unfortunate that as much attention was paid to TB as it is to H1N1. Maybe if TB was affecting the rest of the population as H1N1 is instead of mostly just the aboriginals the MSM and others might have taken notice. I don’t know if the situation has improved over the past 7-10 yrs, but this is what was said about it back then.
“TB control among aboriginal people in Canada, both those living on reserves and those residing in the inner city, continues to pose a major public health problem. The potential for a significant worsening of the situation is real, especially for the marginalized inner-city population with a background of substance abuse.”
The reason why the money isn’t getting anywhere is because of the bureaucracy in the Reserve system. The chiefs live wealthy because they are in charge of the distribution of money. There is only 2 ways of handling the problem. 1. We can get rid of the chiefs which would be technically wrong with dealing with their affairs. of 2. We can stop giving them money. We have been giving them money for more than a 100 years, why should I have to suffer for decisions made a century ago. Lets give them another 5 years of money and put half of it into education/training programs. Its time to get rid of that system and move on with all of our lives. What debt would we have if we implemented this?