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The White House is ratcheting up the rhetoric ahead of the President's annual State of the Union...

  • Friday, February 8, 9:23 PM ET
    The White House is ratcheting up the rhetoric ahead of the President's annual State of the Union address, warning that automatic government spending cuts due to hit March 1 - unless Congress acts to prevent them - are going bite deeply into programs affecting many Americans. The list runs the standard gamut of essentials, including: A reduction in force of about 1,000 law enforcement agents; 2,100 fewer food safety inspections; and the loss of nutrition and food benefits for approximately 600K women and children.
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This news story has 15 comments:

  •  
    The self-styled epic social activist is at it again; best in class!

    No need to defend an overly-bloated bureaucracy and military, Sir!
    8 Feb, 09:37 PM Reply Like
  •  
    Amazingly disgraceful how The Messiah spends , spends , borrows , borrows , taxes , taxes .....

    USA's rating will get downgraded again
    9 Feb, 10:12 AM Reply Like
  •  
    If that's what Obama intends to do rather than fix the problem I think the ownness is on him.
    8 Feb, 10:55 PM Reply Like
  •  
    Guess what! The needed cuts will impact all of us!

    Virtually every program will have to be smaller and many have to be eliminated outright. Our government should only spend money on the things it is not reasonable to expect an adult to do for themselves. And once we cut out all that don't meet that threshold, then we have to shrink the rest - all of it.

    If we had made deep cuts a few years ago we'd have a booming economy today with lots of growth and increased tax revenue. Instead we continue to place a fiscal anchor around future generations necks.

    2% growth is basically just population growth. Its nothing. And thats with the domestic energy boom - think how bad things would be without that element!

    Cut government, then cut it again, and once more for good measure. Then we'll start to see true economic growth follow and perhaps our government focussed on far fewer things will actually be able to function at at least a mediocre level.
    9 Feb, 01:37 AM Reply Like
  •  
    Exactly. Federal government bloat has gone way past the point of being fix-able with a scalpel. The bloody ginormous thing needs to worked on with a chain saw.
    9 Feb, 06:26 AM Reply Like
  •  
    Start cutting with the entitlement programs - wish I could claim them as dependents on my taxes.
    9 Feb, 06:41 AM Reply Like
  •  
    The new acronym for the times:

    GROWTH

    (G)DP

    (R)esists

    (O)bama's

    (W)illful

    (T)otalitarian

    (H)opium
    9 Feb, 08:29 AM Reply Like
  •  
    1000 Police officers? That's a start. I live in a very rural community of 2800 people. But, we have our fully outfitted SWAT team, courtesy of the Federal Government.
    9 Feb, 08:50 PM Reply Like
  •  
    Stop sending F16's, M1 tanks & Gulfstream executive jets to Egypt, etc. Of course all of these are 'paid for' by the receiving county with - wait for it !! - foreign aid from - wait for it !! - US !!
    9 Feb, 09:28 PM Reply Like
  •  
    While I agree that we need to reduce the size of government and trim entitlements, just what will 10-20K or more government employees do once they are laid off? And if we were to cut the Pentagon's budget by 50%, where would all those tens of thousands of military workers and even more contractors find work? Without defense contracts, the whole defense contracting industry will collapse--something that I don't mind philosophically--but how will our fragile economy absorb those losses? The private sector is not hiring, and if they are, they are hiring low-wage workers. Downsizing government needs to be done slowly and in such a way as to not worsen the economy--not via fiscal cliff debt showdowns. Those who advocate for sudden, drastic cuts seem to be more politically motivated than well reasoned. Austerity may win one battle, but it creates others, and arguably may win the war to better long-term growth more slowly.
    9 Feb, 10:19 PM Reply Like
  •  
    Freezing .gov spending or decrease the rate spending grows would be ideal. I want a smaller .gov but i am realistic that cutting spending 50% overnight would be disastrous to our economy. The economy is going to grow long term which means greater tax revenue to the government.
    10 Feb, 03:10 AM Reply Like
  •  
    Pt,
    The problem with your arguement is that its been used for years and years and all the while the federal government spending explodes.

    We are long past the point of a painless solution.

    I couldn't care less what the laid off bureaucrats do. They will either innovate and work hard or they will sit on their porch. I don't care. Why should we indebt future generations so that folks with no marketable skills can collect government paychecks???

    I care far more about my children and grandchildren's future.

    And a part of the reason there is little hiring in the private sector is because our government is so damn big and intrusive.

    In the long run drastically cutting government spending - restoring our freedoms and liberties - will result in a stronger private sector - much stronger wealth creation - better job opportunities for our children - less unemployment - and it might also allow our government to focus on doing a few things well instead of trying to run everything terribly!
    9 Feb, 10:52 PM Reply Like
  •  
    At this point, I think US recession is inevitable, it's just an issue of timing. If US government spends less or taxes more to support that spending - all in order to reduce budget deficit - the end result is less money circulating in the US economy. So maybe rather than looking at economic indicators, political indicators are now more important.

    And I'm pretty sure that the increased taxes and Obamacare have not been priced into the stock market yet.
    9 Feb, 11:28 PM Reply Like
  •  
    The higher the market goes, the harder, farther, and more swiftly it will fall. Every day the bulls struggle against the inevitable just ensures that the coming crash will be all the more brutal and that most will not get out in time.

    I would love to be a bull, full on bullish. I think it would be great to have nothing but a bull market from here on out forever. But we can't have that without real, organic growth. We would have negative GDP growth if not for the money printing (not even counting the negative print in Q4). That is a simple fact. The world market is affording the US the opportunity to have positive GDP growth by accepting our printed money... for now. The whole thing is a house of cards, and it when goes, it will go down and hard, and go down for a long time. We will not have a healthy market again until it is supported by real growth in America and real jobs for Americans. Perhaps Ben Bernanke's plan could work, and businesses could start hiring and begin the virtuous cycle once again. But we haven't seen evidence of that. When it is reasonably easy for the average American to go out and find a fair paying job that lets them participate in the economy, then we can have a bull market. Not before.

    What we have now is a game of seeing how far people can climb up an icy rockface before they slip and fall. The higher the climb the more painful the fall will be... and the longer it will take to recover... if the climber survives.

    I give props to market operators slick enough to participate in the upside and get out in time before the crash.
    10 Feb, 02:16 AM Reply Like
  •  
    It amazing to me that in any of his speeches ...his pay or congress´s pay never ever are cut...their pensions too...that would be the first thing for me..
    10 Feb, 01:49 PM Reply Like
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