Obama's Budget....Just Raises the Debt Levels...Same Old Ideas....It's Dead on Arrival!

From the Washington Post -

Obama budget: National debt will be $1 trillion higher in a decade than first forecast

By Lori Montgomery, Updated: Monday, February 13, 12:30 PM

President Obama on Monday unveiled a $3.8 trillion spending plan that seeks to pump billions of dollars into the economy while raising taxes on the rich to tame a soaring national debt now projected to grow significantly faster than previously forecast.

The president’s outlook for debt reduction has deteriorated markedly since September, when Obama told Congress that his proposals would hold annual deficits well under $600 billion after next year and permit the debt held by outside investors to rise to $17.7 trillion by 2021, or 73 percent of the overall economy.

Comparing their fiscal promises isn’t quite comparing apples to apples. Obama is burdened with the responsibilities of governance. His numbers need to add up.

The new 10-year blueprint shows annual deficits exceeding $600 billion every year except 2018. And the portion of the debt held by outside investors would grow to $18.7 trillion by 2021, or 76.5 percent of the economy — a full $1 trillion higher.

Administration officials said about half the increase is due to policy changes, with the other half driven by gloomier economic projections that tend to depress tax collections, increase government spending and drive deficits up. Job growth has proven stronger than expected since the budget was prepared, they said, adding that the picture would look brighter today.

Saying that he had “outlined a blueprint for an economy that is built to last,” Obama began an address Monday at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale by aiming squarely at Republicans, who have been bent on derailing the president’s spending and tax proposals.

“The economy is growing stronger, the economy is speeding up,” he said. “The last thing we can afford to do is go back to the very policies that got us into this mess in the first place. We can’t afford it.”

Speaking before a crowd of about 815, mostly students, the president said, “The main idea in the budget is this: At time our economy is growing and creating jobs at a faster clip, we need to do everything in our power to keep this recovery on track.”

In the blueprint, Obama stood fast on his plan to raise revenue by ending the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, a move that Republicans have stridently opposed. To that end, Obama would let the tax cuts expire for those making more than $250,00 a year and has proposed taxing dividends earned by those households as ordinary income -- or up to 39.6 percent. In the past, the president had called for raising the taxes on dividends only to 20 percent.

Referring to the tax plan during the NOVA event, Obama said: “Asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary when it comes to his tax rate -- that’s just common sense. Because Warren Buffet is doing fine, I’m doing fine. We don’t need the tax breaks. You need them.

In a written message to Congress, Obama issued a passionate election-year call for increased spending to bolster domestic manufacturing, lure jobs back from overseas, hire teachers, retrain workers and rebuild the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. He drew a sharp contrast with his Republican opponents, arguing that his approach “rejects the ‘you’re on your own’ economics” that envision tax cuts for the rich and a frayed social safety net for everyone else, and “have led to a widening gap between the richest and poorest Americans.”

“Today, we are seeing signs that our economy is on the mend. But we are not out of the woods yet. Instead, we are facing a make-or-break moment for the middle class, and for all those who are fighting to get there,” Obama wrote.

“What is at stake is whether or not this will be a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build modest savings, own a home, and secure their retirement. This is the defining issue of our time.”

Comparing their fiscal promises isn’t quite comparing apples to apples. Obama is burdened with the responsibilities of governance. His numbers need to add up.

Republicans immediately blasted the proposal, charging that Obama had failed to meet his debt-reduction goals. In addition to higher debt projections, they said that the document includes an array of accounting gimmicks that, if discounted, would leave genuine savings well below Obama’s target of $4 trillion over 10 years.

On a conference call with reporters, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) denounced the president as “ducking responsibility” on taming the national debt.

“He has failed to take any credible action to deal with this crisis,” Ryan said, before ridiculing the White House’s slogan for the budget. “Instead of an America built to last, this is a plan for and American drowning in debt. All we’re getting is more spending, more borrowing, more debt.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) dismissed the budget as “a campaign document.”

“Once again, the President is shirking his responsibility to lead and using this budget to divide,” McConnell said. “The plan is obvious: Rather than reach out to members of Congress on a consensus budget, the President will take this budget on the road, as he is today, and talk about the parts he thinks audiences will like.”

Mitt Romney, the frontrunner in the GOP prsidential race, called it “an insult to the American taxpayer,” arguing that it would increase spending while failing to take “meaningful steps toward solving our entitlement crisis.”

In a preemptive attack issued hours before the budget was made public, Romney signaled that overhauling the major entitlement programs will be a key issue in the presidential campaign if he wins the GOP nomination. Romney has called for sweeping changes to Social Security and Medicare that would transform the retirement landscape for future retirees by raising the Social Security eligibility age, reducing checks for higher-income seniors and replacing the open-ended Medicare entitlement with capped federal payments that could be used to purchase private insurance coverage.

Obama’s blueprint wouldn’t touch Social Security and would trim spending on federal programs such as Medicare only by about $360 billion over the next decade, primarily by reducing payments to drug companies and other providers. Starting in 2017, he also proposes to raise premiums for new retirees and seniors with higher incomes and begin charging co-payments for home health services.

Last summer, Obama considered more far-reaching changes, including an increase in the Medicare eligibility age, currently set at 65. But he and other Democrats have refused to consider deeper benefit cuts unless Republicans agree to raise taxes on the wealthy.