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A Second Look: Obama To Ask Agency Heads For Budget Cuts and the AP Allows a LIE!

Apr 18th, 2009
by Tom.
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via Obama To Ask Agency Heads For Budget Cuts.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama said Saturday he will ask all of his department and agency heads for specific proposals for cutting their budgets at his Cabinet meeting early next week as he searches for ways to streamline government spending.

Maybe if Obama had begun this process immediately he may have been able to tailor his budget to fit a bit better and not drawn the ire of those like Limbaugh who want him to fail.

There is something very contentious about this article and I’m so upset I could just crap. The author has plugged in a comment by a Republican Congressman, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), that is an out and out LIE and just let the comment sit there as if it were the truth. The Associated Press, once again, has shown its true colors as shills for the right and a main element in the right-wing nut-job echo chamber.

Here’s the LIE in BOLD. I included both paragraphs for context:

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif - Liar

“Earlier this week, President Obama said that we need to get serious about fiscal discipline by trimming waste in the federal budget,” Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said in the GOP address. “Republicans couldn’t agree more. We want to work with the president to get our financial house back in order.”

“It’s irresponsible to borrow more than all previous American presidents combined. And it must stop if we want to get our economy moving again,” McCarthy said. “When will all this spending and borrowing end?”

I’m sorry, but that dubious distinction belongs to none other than George W. Bush!

The AP has let this lie hang there as if it were the truth. Where has honest journalism gone? I suppose I’ll have to do what the AP has forgotten how to do and that is to tell the truth.

When Bush entered office, the national debt was around $5 trillion, when he left office the debt had been doubled to $10 trillion. More borrowed debt than all other administrations combined.

Obama’s budget looks big, around $3.6 trillion, but it is transparent where Bush kept two or three different sets of books. Bush tried to conceal his borrowing. This year’s revenues will cut subtract from that figure  and according to how much he can cut wasteful spending the deficit should only be about $1 trillion since this year’s revenues should be about $2.5 trillion.

The AP author should be taken out and hung in the streets (metaphorically) for letting this lie stand. Other news agencies are repeating this and also not debunking. I read the exact same story at MSNBC. Sad. Don’t these crack-head loose cannon writers have editors?

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A Second Look | House, Senate Pass Obama’s Budget

Apr 2nd, 2009
by Tom.
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via House, Senate Pass Obama’s Budget.

WASHINGTON — Acting in quick succession, the House and Senate approved budgets Thursday night drawn to President Barack Obama’s specifications and pointing the way toward major legislation later this year on health care, energy and education.

“It’s going to take a lot of work to clean up the mess we inherited, and passing this budget is a critical step in the right direction,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said. “Staying true to these priorities will help turn around the economy for the many Americans who are underwater right now.”

Since Obama has been in office for about 70 days now, he has passed every major bill that he has wanted even though the Republican minority has stood against his efforts at bipartisanship, often with 100% participation in the obstinance.

Obama has gotten all the money he asked for for the remainder of the TARP plan. He has gotten most everything he asked for the Recovery Act, some $750 billion, and now congress has passed his $1.2 trillion budget even though the opposition offered their own plan late in the game and with little fanfare.

Everyone has concluded that the Republicans are out of ideas and out of touch with average Americans.

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A Second Look | ECONOMY — REPORT: OBAMA’S BUDGET WILL HELP SMALL BUSINESSES

Mar 28th, 2009
by Tom.
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The Progress Report wrote:

From: The Progress Report [progress@americanprogressaction.org]
Sent: Friday, March 27, 2009 9:10 AM
To: tom
Subject: Stop The O’Reilly Harassment Machine

ECONOMY — REPORT: OBAMA’S BUDGET WILL HELP SMALL BUSINESSES:

A common attack refrain by conservatives on President Obama’s budget proposal is that tax increases will hurt small businesses. Beginning in 2011, Obama’s plan would slightly increase taxes on households earning more than $250,000 and individuals earning over $200,000. In defending the Republican’s alternative budget proposal that offers a large tax cut to businesses, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) said, “Republicans know that raising taxes on small businesses will only result in more workers losing their jobs.” However, a new study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities finds that “under the Clinton Administration, when the tax treatment of high-income families was very similar to what President Obama has proposed, small businesses generated jobs at twice the rate as under the Bush tax code.” During the Clinton years, small businesses generated 756,000 new jobs, versus only 367,000 new jobs under the tax conditions set by Bush, which Republicans seek to replicate. Further, “more small business owners would receive tax cuts” under Obama’s plan because they do not fall into the $250,000-plus tax bracket. “Most small business owners aren’t in the top two marginal tax rates,” said Benjamin Harris of the Tax Policy Center. “In my opinion, there’s some misunderstanding in these political debates that the people who’ll be affected are middle-income Americans who run mom-and-pop stores.”

I’ve figured it out. Tax cuts is Republicanease for “Increase Corporate Profits, Increase Salary for the Wealthy, and Damn the Middle Class “.

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