Obama to Cut Deficit By $3 Trillion

Miscellaneous General
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/us/politics/obama-plan-to-cut-deficit-will-trim-spending.html

WASHINGTON — President Obama will unveil a plan on Monday that uses entitlement cuts, tax increases and war savings to reduce the federal deficit by more than $3 trillion over the next 10 years, administration officials said.

President Obama discussed his deficit plan at the White House on Monday.

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The plan, which Mr. Obama will lay out Monday morning at the White House, is the administration’s opening move in sweeping negotiations on deficit reduction to be taken up by a joint House-Senate committee over the next two months. If a deal is not enacted by Dec. 23, cuts could take effect automatically across government agencies.

Mr. Obama will call for $1.5 trillion in tax increases, primarily on the wealthy, through a combination of letting the Bush-era tax cuts expire, 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.

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How are future cuts in military spending that may or may not happen being counted as cuts now?

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Cut three trillion off the deficit over 10 years but increase taxes by $1.5 trillion.

This is just reducing the deficit. Which means that it is being calculated on projected deficit spending over 10 years. But they can merely increase the deficit spending projections by the same amount and end up with a net gain of $11.5 trillion over 10 years. Seems to basic of a trick to me.

“We were going to to spend $5 trillion but we only spent $4 trillion therefore you saved $1 trillion.” That would be like someone giving me $100 and then I don’t spend $20 of it and I tell them that i saved them $20 but i still keep it and spend it on something else. The government does not save anyone money by cutting the deficit. If they went in to surplus then they could be considered to save people’s money. But even then it would just go towards the debt.