To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (650295 ) 4/4/2012 12:25:55 PM From: tejek Read Replies (1) | Respond to Calling Radicalism by Its Name a thunderclap of a speech . He accused his opponents of imposing on the country a “radical vision” that “is antithetical to our entire history as a land of opportunity.” a House budget plan “Trojan horse” “By gutting the very things we need to grow an economy that’s built to last — education and training, research and development, our infrastructure — it is a prescription for decline,” he said, speaking to a group of Associated Press editors and reporters in Washington. Even Ronald Reagan, who raised taxes in multiple budget deals, “could not get through a Republican primary today ,” Mr. Obama said. While Democrats have repeatedly shown a willingness to cut entitlements and have agreed to trillions in domestic spending cuts, he said, Republicans won’t agree to any tax increases and, in fact, want to shower the rich with even more tax cuts. The speech was the first time that Mr. Obama linked Mr. Romney, by name, to his party’s dishonest budget and discredited trickle-down policies. As Mr. Obama pointed out, Mr. Romney described as “marvelous” a budget that would drastically cut student financial aid, medical research, Head Start classrooms and environmental protections. Mr. Obama further ridiculed the budget’s deficit-cutting goal as “laughable” because it refuses to acknowledge the need for new revenues. attacked by the House speaker, John Boehner “That argument might have a shred of credibility were it not for their proposal to also spend $4.6 trillion over the next decade on lower tax rates,” he said. The math is, in fact, quite simple: cutting both taxes and the deficit can mean only more sacrifice from the middle class and the poor, ending the promise of Medicare and Medicaid. Over the long term, the deficit can be brought down through a combination of cuts and new revenues; doing so immediately, as Mr. Romney and his party want to do, would reverse the fragile recovery. His remarks promise a tough-minded campaign that will call extremism and dishonesty by name. nytimes.com
