Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Chispas who wrote (61363)	1/3/2007 7:54:37 PM
From: regli	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

This guy is special.... Bush resolves to slash deficit by 2012 latimes.com By Joel Havemann, Times Staff Writer 11:09 AM PST, January 3, 2007 WASHINGTON -- President Bush, boasting that it took only two years to cut in half the record budget deficit from early in his tenure, said today that he will propose next month wiping out the other half by 2012 — a goal that could tie the hands of the Democrats as they take control of Congress. Bush said he could accomplish his goal and still win the war on terrorism by making permanent the tax cuts of his first term that are set to expire after 2010. The cuts, he said, must be concentrated in the giant government benefit programs — Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — that constitute more than 40% of federal spending. Bush also called on the new Congress that will begin work Thursday — with Democrats in control of both the House and the Senate for the first time in Bush's presidency — to cut by half Congress' growing use of "earmarks" to provide funds for pet projects in lawmakers' home states and districts. Bush's proposal to balance the budget in five years could make it difficult for the Democrats to use their newfound majority to enact their program. House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco has included only one spending item — beefed-up college student loans — in her agenda for the first 100 hours of the new Congress, but other Democrats are likely to advance their own plans. Rep. John Spratt (D-S.C.), who will chair the House Budget Committee, said he was "wary" of Bush's plan to balance the budget by 2012. How, he wondered, can Bush balance the budget while the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have cost upwards of $100 billion a year? And he asked about how to provide relief from the alternative minimum tax, which was designed to hit only the rich but would ensnare growing numbers of middle-income taxpayers — at a cost to them of more than $60 billion a year. Bush, reading a statement in the Rose Garden after meeting with his Cabinet, said, "It's time to set aside politics and focus on the future." "The Congress has changed," Bush said. "Our obligations to the country haven't changed. "Together," he said, referring to the Democrats, "we have important things to do." But congressional Democrats said they had not been consulted about Bush's proposal to balance the budget. Bush, in his statement, said the budget that he will submit to Congress next month "will address the most urgent needs of our nation — in particular, the need to protect ourselves from radicals and terrorists; the need to win the war on terror; the need to maintain a strong national defense; and the need to keep this economy growing by making tax relief permanent." Bush said Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid needed reform to ensure that the programs would survive "without bankrupting the country" when today's young people need them. Turning to Congress' tendency to provide funding for pet projects back home, Bush said, "Earmarks often divert precious funds from vital priorities, like national defense, and each year they cost the taxpayers billions of dollars." Bush proposed full disclosure of the sponsors, costs, recipients and justifications of all earmarks. Pelosi has included earmark reform in her agenda for the first 100 hours of the new Congress.