Mr. Obama will call for $1.5 trillion in tax increases, primarily on the wealthy, through a combination of closing loopholes and limiting the amount that high earners can deduct. The proposal also includes $580 billion in adjustments to health and entitlement programs, including $248 billion to Medicare and $72 billion to Medicaid. Administration officials said that the Medicare cuts would not come from an increase in the Medicare eligibility age.
Senior administration officials who briefed reporters on some of the details of Mr. Obama’s proposal said that the plan also counts a savings of $1.1 trillion from the ending of the American combat mission in Iraq and the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan.
In laying out his proposal, aides said, Mr. Obama will expressly promise to veto any legislation that seeks to cut the deficit through spending cuts alone and does not include revenue increases in the form of tax increases on the wealthy.
That veto threat will put the president on a direct collision course with the House speaker, John A. Boehner... NYT
The trouble for Mr. Boehner is that most Americans disagree with him. A reminder from the latest poll:
* A huge majority, 80-16, favors spending money on the nation’s infrastructure in order to try to create jobs.
* A big majority, 71, favors reducing the deficit through a combination of tax increases and spending cuts; a meager 21 percent favors only spending cuts.
* A solid majority, 56-37, favors reducing the deficit with tax hikes on households earning $250,000 a year or more.
Paul Krugman sees a parallel for what Republicans want in discredited old medical practices.
Doctors used to believe that by draining a patient’s blood they could purge the evil “humors” that were thought to cause disease. In reality, of course, all their bloodletting did was make the patient weaker, and more likely to succumb.
Fortunately, physicians no longer believe that bleeding the sick will make them healthy. Unfortunately, many of the makers of economic policy still do. And economic bloodletting isn’t just inflicting vast pain; it’s starting to undermine our long-run growth prospects.
NPR finally says it clearly this morning. Periods of higher tax rates have also been the periods of highest growth. Republicans' belief otherwise is "an article of faith" without basis in reality.
Last night we got 1/2" of rain here in the Texas dust bowl. What the Republicans want is more dust bowl. What everyone else wants is rain, growth, and life.
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The Washington Post report points to what is likely the underlying (new?) goal of the Obama administration: to end the perception that the two major parties being "the same."
Last week, Obama told supporters at a fundraiser in Washington that the upcoming debate will crystallize the difference between his views and those of the GOP.
He said that “2012 is going to offer a clearer contrast than I think we’ve ever seen before,” adding: “If you see the direction that the Republican Party is now going in, you have a party that offers a fundamentally different vision of where America should be, and what we should be aspiring to, and what our core values are.”
For those who have abandoned the Democratic party for having moved too far to the right, this may be the first signs that progressives within the party have made their voices heard. Could we be seeing the beginning of the end of Clintonian accomodations?
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Speaking of "collision course," Obama has been getting a lot of flak from the old new-cons (Bolton, Abrams) for his handling of the Israel/Palestine situation. He gets, however, a lot of support from within Israel and from key experts on Israel within the US.
Elliott Abrams, another former Bush administration official, testified before a recent house hearing: "I think this does stem in part from a gigantic mistake the administration made at the very beginning. It believed that by distancing us from Israel, it would increase our influence on the Palestinians and the Israelis. In fact, it has diminished our influence with the Palestinians and the Israelis."
Former Israeli ambassador Shalev, now president of Ono Academic College in Israel, says she's been hearing those complaints at home as well.
"This criticism is wrong," she says. "There may be some kind of lack of chemistry between the leaders. As far as I know, it does not reflect on the diplomatic and the shared intelligence cooperation and military cooperation."
The New America Foundation's Daniel Levy thinks the Obama administration has actually gone out of its way to support Israel despite the president's tense relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"The current administration, as others have done, has gone out on a limb to be protective of Israel in difficult circumstances to the detriment quite often of American interests and I would argue that this particular administration has done so under even more problematic circumstances for America," Levy says.
Now he says the U.S. finds itself promoting freedom and democracy throughout the Arab world, while threatening to veto Palestinian aspirations at the U.N. Security Council. And Levy, a former Israeli negotiator, says the U.S. remained Israel's loyal ally even after Netanyahu gave President Obama a public dressing down about the U.S. suggestions for reviving peace talks.
"You had, I think it's fair to say the most pugnaciously, nationalist, least accommodating Israeli government in history that really refused to give anyone anything to work with at all," Levy adds. ...NPR
