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发帖数: 901 | 1 WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama unveiled a $3.8 trillion spending
plan on Monday for 2013 that seeks to achieve $4 trillion in deficit
reduction over the next decade but does little to restrain growth in the
government's huge health benefit programs, a major cause of future deficits.
Obama's new budget was immediately attacked by Republicans as a retread of
previously rejected ideas. The budget battle is likely to be a major
component of the fall election campaign.
The president would achieve $1.5 trillion of the deficit reductions in tax
increases on the wealthy and by removing certain corporate tax breaks. Obama
rejected GOP charges of class warfare. In his budget message, he said, "
This is not about class warfare. This is about the nation's welfare."
In a message that repeated populist themes Obama also sounded in his State
of the Union address, the president defended his proposed tax increases on
the wealthy, saying it was important that the burden of getting deficits
under control be a shared responsibility.
"This is about making fair choices that benefit not just the people who have
done fantastically well over the last few decades but that also benefit the
middle class, those fighting to get into the middle class and the economy
as a whole," Obama said.
Obama used an appearance before students at Northern Virginia Community
College to unveil the budget and highlight a $8 billion proposal that aims
at boosting the ability of the nation's community colleges to train students
for the jobs of the future. He told the students his budget was a "
reflection of shared responsibility."
While administration officials defended the overall plan as a balanced
approach, Republicans attacked it as failing to enough to restrain the
deficit, which Obama had promised in 2009 to cut in half by the end of his
first term.
"This isn't really a budget at all. It's a campaign document," said Senate
Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. "The president is shirking
his responsibility to lead and using this budget to divide."
Republican Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, said that
Obama had ducked "the responsibility to tackle this country's real fiscal
problems.
Ryan is preparing an alternative to Obama's budget that will be similar to a
measure that the House approved last year but failed in the Senate where
many lawmakers objected to a major overhaul to Medicare.
"We do not intend on backing off on anything," Ryan said in an interview. "
We intend on giving the country an alternative and a solution to our biggest
problems." |
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