|
Foxnews.com…
Obama Tacks Center,
but Debt Reduction Remains Elusive
President Obama's State of the Union address is expected to emphasize
jobs, growth and debt reduction but is unlikely to embrace the
recommendations of a bipartisan majority of the deficit reduction
commission he created to find ways to balance the budget, a senior aide
to the president told Fox News.
The panel, which spent a half-million dollars developing a set of debt
reduction recommendations that were ultimately rejected in December by
a supermajority of the 18-member group, proposed slashing deficits over
the next 10 years by cutting domestic and military spending, changing
Social Security and Medicare payouts and overhauling the tax code.
While the proposal was supported by several members of both sides of
the aisle, it achieved only 11 of the 14 votes needed to move it to
Congress for action.
Still, many of the ideas remain very much on the table.
"I don't think we ought to start out with the notion that -- that a
whole lot of areas in the budget are exempt from reducing spending,
which is what we really need to do and do it quickly," Senate Minority
Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told "Fox News Sunday."
McConnell, who with House Speaker John Boehner selected budget-busting
Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin to deliver the Republican address following
the president's on Tuesday night, said not just short-term annual debt,
but "long-term unfunded liabilities to the entitlement programs," need
to be considered in any initiatives submitted by Obama.
"We'll look to the president to see what we wants to do about our
long-term problem as well as the annual deficits we've been running,
which are completely unsustainable," McConnell said.
Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who was on the panel and
supported the recommendations, suggested Congress "dust off that
deficit commission report."
"Take a look at some of the things we address there: First $3 in
spending cuts for every dollar in new revenue, so if we're serious when
it came to cutting spending, we must do that. Secondly, when it came to
revenue, take a look at tax code. ... In all the time I've been in
Washington, we've never put the tax code on the table and said does it
still make sense, all the deductions, all the credits, all the tax
earmarks? Do they make sense? They cost us $1.1 trillion each year,"
Durbin said on "Fox News Sunday."
The president is supposed to make a tactical shift to the center during
his State of the Union address, an aide to the president said. He will
focus on five central themes: innovation, education, infrastructure,
deficit reduction and reforming government, and he will touch on issues
like overhauling the tax code.
Read more
|
|
|
|
