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| Source:Al Jazeera- Speaker of the House John Boehner (Republican, Ohio) and the House Republican Leadership. |
"Al Jazeera (Arabic: الجزيرة, romanized: al-jazīrah, IPA: [æl (d)ʒæˈziːrɐ], literally "The Island", though referring to the Arabian Peninsula in context)[3] is a state-owned[4] broadcaster based in Doha, Qatar, owned by the Al Jazeera Media Network. Initially launched as an Arabic news and current affairs satellite TV channel, Al Jazeera has since expanded into a network with several outlets, including the internet and specialty television channels in multiple languages...
From Wikipedia
"The US president has announced his support for a bipartisan deficit-reduction proposal aimed at averting a debt default, saying time was running out for an agreement to raise the US borrowing limit.
Barack Obama said the ambitious budget plan brought forward on Tuesday by the "Gang of Six" group of senators could provide new ideas for breaking the impasse in Congress over raising the federal government's credit limit by August 2.
Al Jazeera's Kimberley Halkett reports from Washington."
From Al Jazeera
Glad to see President Obama finally show some leadership and take some action on the deficit reduction and debt ceiling issue. And actually come out in favor of a plan, the plan introduced by the "Gang of Six" in the Senate a bipartisan group of Senators led by Senator Kent Conrad Chairman of the Budget Committee and Senator Tom Coburn a very important Republican Senator and fiscal Conservative.
This plan closes tax loopholes, cuts military spending but in a strategic way. But it sort of punts on the tax cuts for the wealthy and entitlement reform, where we could save hundreds of billions of dollars every year without hurting anyone. But apparently this is a 4T$ deficit reduction plan over ten years, with serious budget cuts and revenue raisers. And if this were to come true, would get our Federal debt and deficit under control and I believe be a jump in the economy and strengthen our dollar. Which would also be a boost to the Stock Market.
This is not the plan that I would've written, because it does nothing on the tax cuts for the wealthy, entitlement reform or closing some of our foreign bases in developed countries that can afford to defend themselves. That we can no longer afford to defend with our debt situation and our own foreign policy issues. We'll have another opportunity within a year or so to save an additional hundred billion dollars a year to pay down our debt and deficit by bringing our troops home from Afghanistan and Ira. (knock on wood, as the saying goes)
This is a hell of a lot better than the McConnell punt from the Senate Minority Leader or Crap Carry and Bounce from the House Tea Party. And it shows that there are still some Members of Congress (at least in the Senate) that understand the debt issue, what needs to get done and which is as important. What can pass at least in the Senate and if the House GOP ever wakes up, what should be able to pass in the House as well. Because both sides will be giving up plenty to get plenty in return, budget cuts and revenue raisers, without having to make tough political choices on entitlement reform and tax hikes on the wealthy. Which is why this wouldn't of been the plan I would've written.
If I had to coin this deficit reduction and debt ceiling plan, I would call it The Comeback Drive, that got us back in the game (so to speak) and bought Congress and the White House more time to deal with the tougher issues to win the game. And I'm done with sports analogy's. (At least football for this post) It's that time of year.
