Excerpt:
President Obama plans to announce in next year’s State of the Union address that the administration will focus on deficit reduction and job creation in 2010.
According to POLITICO, which is often used to convey administration messages to Congress, top aides involved in planning the address said Obama “wants to focus extensively on cutting the federal deficit in 2010 – and will downplay other new domestic spending beyond jobs programs.”
Economically and practically speaking, it is a common sense that deficit-spending needs to be reduced. It is also common sense that there can be no real economic recovery without job creation and a massive reduction in unemployment.
On the political side, however, it is uncertain whether these proposals will be sound economic and fiscal policy, or merely a political reaction to the heat the administration has taken over government spending from Republicans. Democrats have to reassure voters that domestic spending is not reckless, but the only way to do that is with immediate positive results. Republicans, however, seem to be most critical of domestic spending and tend to overlook the largest chunks of spending – on entitlement, defense and war appropriations. The proposal to reduce the deficit by cutting domestic spending, therefore, seems to be more political in nature than economic.
If the Obama administration is truly serious about reducing the deficit, creating jobs and bringing the economy out of recession, perhaps it is time to end the wars. Invest our tax dollars in America, not Iraq and Afghanistan.
Read more here: http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-23316-Madison-Independent-Examiner~y2009m11d17-Obama-to-focus-on-deficit-reduction-and-job-creation-in-2010