Looks like the new approach by the administration is a lot closer to what the rest of us have been calling for. We’ll know the details in President Obama’s speech today — in the meantime, HuffPo reports Obama will veto anything from the Super Committee that’s all Medicare cuts and no tax hikes:
President Obama on Monday will unveil a plan to tame the nation’s rocketing federal debt that will draw a sharp contrast with the Republican vision and amount more to an opening play in the fall’s debate over the economy than another attempt at finding common ground with the opposing party.
The president will propose $1.5 trillion in new taxes as part of a plan to find at least $3 trillion in budget savings over a decade, according to a person familiar with the matter. Combined with his call earlier this month for $450 billion in new stimulus, the proposal represents a more populist approach to confronting the nation’s economic travails than the compromises he advocated this summer.
Obama will propose new taxes on the wealthy and a special new tax for millionaires, according to White House officials. But he won’t call for any changes in Social Security, officials say, and may seek less-aggressive changes to Medicare and Medicaid than previously considered. In particular, people familiar with the matter say he is unlikely to call for an increase in the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67.
Coming as a congressional supercommittee goes to work to find budget savings this fall, Obama’s position will probably delight Democrats, who have fretted for months that he is doing too little to solve the nation’s jobs crisis while being too willing to embrace major changes to Medicare and Social Security.
But his plan has little chance of passing and is already inflaming Republicans, who have vowed to oppose new taxes and have called for deep cuts in federal spending and entitlements. On Sunday, Republicans responded with vitriol to the proposal to create a special tax for millionaires.
“Class warfare may make for really good politics, but it makes for rotten economics,” Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), chairman of the House Budget Committee, said on “Fox News Sunday.” “It adds further instability to our system, more uncertainty, and it punishes job creation.”
This thing of Obama’s is a non-starter. He bleeds $550 billion dollars from Medicare and discretionary spending (which they are now calling “mandatory” spending) and yet………………and yet, not one thin dime is cut from defense. Not a dime. Obama must be craaazzzy.
President Obama says that he will veto. Yeah, I’ll believe it when I see it. Anyone want to take a bet that he backs down?
And, a big “Uh oh!” Obama’s idea of balancing tax cuts and Medicare cuts may differ wildly from ours.
Also, per the HuffPo article linked to, the veto threat comes from anonymous “senior advisers,” making it weasel-able.
As in his idea that letting the Bush tax cuts be extended was “fair,” when, for one glaring example, people at the very lowest tax paying level ended up paying more than in the previous year due.
I do not trust this president and will believe only what he actually does. I will prepare to expect not much good from the actual end product until he proves otherwise.