Obama wields scalpel to budget, avoiding much pain

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Real Clear Politics:

President Barack Obama's budget submission on Monday will take a surgical approach to a deficit problem that his Republican rivals say warrants a meat ax.

Monday's release of next year's $3.5 trillion-plus budget plan will likely be ignored by resurgent Republicans intent on cutting tens of billions of dollars from the president's old budget.

That will mean a battle over spending between the White House and Republican-controlled House of Representatives and even the threat of a shutdown of the government in coming weeks.

The Republican drive to slash 2011 spending and much of the savings sought by Obama involve just a small piece of the budget pie _ the annual domestic agency budgets that make up just one-tenth of federal spending.

Tea party-backed House Republicans are trying to slash the budgets for such programs to the levels when Obama first took office.

Obama's promise to freeze budgets of domestic agencies at 2010 levels for five years _ an austere plan by itself _ looks generous by comparison.

Republicans say that Obama's freeze on domestic accounts funded by Congress each year _ which amount to just about 10 cents of every dollar the government spends _ simply keeps in place a generous 24 percent increase awarded by Democrats over the past two years.

On Sunday, House Speaker John Boehner sent a letter to Obama urging the president to support Republican efforts to make deep cuts in this year's budget as a down payment in the effort to attack soaring deficits.

The Ohio Republican wrote that the path to prosperity for the country means "liberating our economy from the shackles of out-of-control government spending and big government."

Accompanying Boehner's letter was a statement endorsed by 150 economists that called for immediate action to reduce spending.

House Republicans are pushing $61 billion in spending cuts through September.
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"Doc Obama" sounds like a plastic surgeon trying to make a vain. aging socialite's face look prettier when it's no longer possible...

[NCJim]

I would like to see the gov. shut down for a while that would save money

[clearvision]

"Republicans wield a meat ax".... more like a butter knife. The bar is set low.

[Saltbag]

It's like what it takes for an addict to hit rock bottom. Hopefully it happens before the global standard is the Yuan instead of the U.S. dollar.

[Valin]