So, someone wanted to know what my opinion was of the President’s budget plan. Full Disclosure: For those that don’t know, I’m a progressive in ideals. Some may want to call me a socialist. Though there’s nothing wrong with socialists (maybe something wrong idealistically in some areas with socialism), I want to be clear that I’m not a socialist. Individuals who don’t understand the difference must go back and do a little homework. With that said, how I feel about the budget plan would be based on my desires for how the government should be run. Even though I’m a progressive, I’m reasonable and logical. I understand that not all battles can be won and that compromise is very necessary. You won’t hear me get upset about programs I don’t like because I understand that politicians have to do things that ensure their reelection.
President Barack Obama’s plan is a pretty pragmatic plan. It isn’t too aggressive that it should upset any folks on either side, but it will. Of course ending the Bush tax cuts, Obama’s tax cut as well, will upset many folks on the right. But I love the idea of ending the Bush/Obama tax cuts, they’ve done nothing for the economy except empower the rich to be richer. In comparison, the amount of jobs created under two terms of President Clinton’s administration was 23.1 million as opposed to two terms of President George W. Bush administration’s 3 million, according to the Labor Department. My issue isn’t with the amount of jobs that weren’t created under President Bush, my issue is that it was implied that something was wrong with the method of the previous administration that it had to be changed. In short, the Bush tax cut doesn’t work. The rich were fine without the Bush tax cuts before and they’ll be fine afterward.
The five year freeze on discretionary spending that doesn’t include security is probably the best effort at belt tightening for the federal government. The Presidents claim is that the freeze would save over $400 billion over a decade. That sounds awesome. In the plan, though saving about $30 billion dollars, there are going to be cuts to programs that I wouldn’t like to see cut. Unfortunately the President didn’t say what those programs would be just that his plan will terminate or reduce 200 programs. My all-time most favorite President of the United States is Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It shouldn’t be any surprise that I believe whole heartedly in deficit spending. Cuts in the wrong places won’t help a weak economy.
On Defense spending, just cutting $78 billion on funding is pretty weak. We spend way too much of defense. Since the next country closest to us in spending is China at a little over $100 billion a year to our $663 Billion. We should be able to cut at least $300 billion out of that.
As for Social Security, that’s a tricky one for me. The President didn’t say what he’d like to see done with the greatest entitlement program ever created, just that he’d like to see it strengthened. I don’t truly plan on retiring until I’m seventy. Part of me believes that letting the retirement age go up would be a great idea (The most unprogressive thought of mine). But I have no numbers on stats on how that’ll help or hurt the program. I know full benefits would take longer to attain for seniors and that raising the age limit would definitely fix the problem, but that’s all I know. I know that the government borrows from the social security reserves, I just don’t know by what percent or how much. This should matter to all Americans, if they raise the age limit, it might allow for the government to borrow more money from the reserve. I’m not sure I’m for that. How about not touching the reserve at all, that might strengthen it.
His plan is very extensive, so I’m not going to answer on the other things that his plan touches on. But I will like to conclude on education. He plans on extending the American Opportunity tax cut and expanding Pell grants, two things I currently rely on. Education, to me, is an issue of national security, economic strength and world power. So, when he says that he’s going to focus on “Preparing 100,000 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics teachers over the next decade,” that goal resonates with me. A college degree shouldn’t be financially difficult to obtain, hopefully it’ll get easier.
