President Obama's Deficit Reduction Plan under Attack by GOP

According to New York Times, President Obama proposed that Congress adopt his "balanced" plan combining entitlement cuts, tax increases and war savings to reduce the federal deficit by more than three trillion dollars over the next ten years. He said he would veto any approach that relied solely on spending reductions to address the fiscal shortfall. President Obama unveiled a three trillion dollar long-term deficit reduction plan that relies heavily on raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans, on Sept. 19.

New York Times reported that Obama is seeking $1.5 trillion in tax increases, primarily on the wealthy and corporations, through a combination of letting Bush-era income tax cuts expire on wealthier taxpayers, limiting the value of deductions taken by high earners and closing corporate loopholes. The proposal also includes $580 billion in adjustments to health and entitlement programs, including $248 billion to Medicare and $72 billion to Medicaid. In a briefing previewing the plan, administration officials said on Sunday that the Medicare savings would not come from an increase in the Medicare eligibility age.

"I will not support any plan that puts the entire burden for closing our deficit on ordinary Americans," he said in his address to GOP from the White House Rose Garden. "And I will veto any bill that changes benefits for those who rely on Medicare but does not raise serious revenues by asking the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations to pay their fair share. Middle-class families shouldn't pay higher taxes than millionaires and billionaires," Obama added. "That's pretty straightforward. It's hard to argue against that."

A couple of days ago Speaker John A. Boehner announced the House's reluctance to approve any tax increase imposed to help facilitate deficit reduction, which led the president to face the music by the Republicans who demanded that taxing the upper class more is an, "effort to win political points that amounted to class warfare."

The president is quoted extensively on major news channels, saying, "This is not class warfare, it is math. The money is going to have to come from someplace." Taxing the wealthy is seemingly a good initiative by the president to gain confidence of Democrats and the 2012 election voters. Although, the confrontation is much needed in the harsh economic times of today, it is offered too late and it is also seen by many US citizens as just candy given to them in order to manipulates us to re-elect him. If the plan didn't get passed he can shift the blame to Congress and can easily get away with it and save himself from our resultant angst.

The million dollar question is, how effective will Obama be in convincing people that two years of inaction is made up for with a couple of bills that have little chance of passage, even within Obama's own party? New York Times added that, the White House still is hoping that a deal with Republicans can emerge from the work of a joint House-Senate committee that will meet over the next two months. If a deal is not enacted by Nov. 23 and quickly approved by Congress, broad cuts would be imposed on government agencies starting in 2013, after the 2012 elections. Also, if the deal cannot be reached, the president's plan may amount to a campaign platform attempting to define the priorities around which he hopes to rally voters and setting up a sharp contrast with Republicans. 

CNN made a valid point that Republican partisans loathe Barack Obama even more viscerally than core Democrats despised George W. Bush. Yet, as with Democrats in 2004, it's hard for Republicans to keep in mind: the typical voter does not feel as they do.