Obama has proposed a budget and deficit reduction plan that would save $1.1 trillion over 10 years. The senate, run by a democrat has proposed one that would save $00 billion over 10 years. Both are just an example of newspeak as neither saves anything. They spend out the wazoo.
To put it in perspective, we are running a $1.5 trillion dollar deficit PER Year. So these grandiose (/sarc) plans are basically cutting less than 10% on a budget that is bloated beyond control. Just 10 years ago, W Bush was vilified for daring to propose a budget that {SHOCK} had a $400 billion deficit. As little as 4 years ago (some may remember this was the ascendancy of the Democrat controlled congress - who by constitution authority have the purse strings) the deficits were in the "few hundred billion" dollar range. What both the Senate and the President fail to realize is that doing business as usual is just not acceptable. At least not if they plan on this country continuing as a viable entity into the future.
The House republicans are not much better. The latest Boehner plan calls for a reduction of $2.5 trillion over 10 years. While that at least breaches the 10% mark, it is far from adequate as it would balloon the debt by another 12-14 trillion dollars in the same period.
All fail to realize that we are broke. And while I am sure there are going to be screams of outrage when things are cut, the simple truth is that we have no money to spend. Congress and the president have to first, roll the budget back to 2006 levels. Period. With a few notable exceptions (such as California and Illinois) all the states have done that.
from the 2006 level, they can then start cutting. That would eliminate all the extra fluff that Obama has asked for and been given over the last 2 years. But then the democrats in congress did promise to cut a dollar for each dollar they spent (but then when has a politician ever told the truth?). Of course that was a lie.
Honesty in government can start now. it probably will not. But the first honest thing they can say is "We are cutting $1 trillion from the budget THIS YEAR" and then do it. Not a cut in spending increases, a cut in SPENDING.
I seriously doubt it will happen, and that does sadden me. A once great nation is headed down a path of irrelevancy due to malfeasance and incompetence on the part of our elected officials. The TEA Party has the right idea, but they have 2 things working against them. Time and a media so incompetent and corrupt that they would rather be the mouthpiece of special interests instead of a reporter of actual facts.
Change has to come now. And not the change of trillions of wasted dollars that Obama delivered. Basic change, or the result will be that no one gets anything.