CNSNews ^ | April 25, 2011 | Fred Lucas
Posted on Monday, April 25, 2011 2:10:34 PM by jazusamo
(CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama said that federal government spending makes America great -- a claim he has made before -- while speaking to a Democratic National Committee (DNC) gathering in San Francisco.
“Let me tell you something,” Obama said to applause from the crowd at Nob Hill Masonic Center in San Francisco on Apr. 20. “I will not reduce our deficit by sacrificing the things that have always made America great. The things that have made Americans prosper,”
“I won’t sacrifice our investments in education,” he said. “I will not sacrifice those. I won’t sacrifice our investments in science and basic research. I won’t sacrifice the safety of our highways or our airports. I won’t sacrifice our investment in clean energy at a time when our dependence on foreign oil is causing Americans so much pain at the pump. I will not sacrifice America’s future. That I will not do.”
House Republican leaders recently released a budget plan, which passed in the House, and is aimed at reducing the national debt and the federal deficit. President Obama released a framework for deficit reduction but not a detailed plan.
The Republican plan focuses on cutting spending and reforming entitlement programs, while Obama’s proposal focuses on increasing taxes for individual incomes of $200,000 or more and household incomes of $250,000 or more.
“If we want to reduce our deficit, yes, we need to cut spending, but we need shared sacrifice,” Obama told the San Francisco crowd. “And that means ending the tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans in this country. We can afford it.”
When he announced his fiscal plan at George Washington University on Apr. 13, Obama said, “We would not be a great country without those commitments,” referring to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and federal unemployment insurance.
In his San Francisco speech last week, Obama stressed that government spending was not the only thing that made America great.
“The America we know is great not because of our skyscrapers or the size of our GDP. It’s because we’ve been able to keep two ideas together at the same time,” Obama said. “The first idea is that we are all individuals endowed with certain inalienable rights and liberties; that we are self-reliant; we are entrepreneurs. We don't expect others to do for us what we can do for ourselves, and we don't really like people telling us what to do.”
“But the second idea -- just as important -- is that we’re all in this together; that we look out for one another; that I am my brother’s keeper; that I am my sister’s keeper,” Obama said. “That I want to make sure that a child born in a tough neighborhood has the same opportunities I had, and I do that -- I feel that way not out of charity, but because my life is richer, my life is better, when the people around me have some measure of security and some measure of dignity, and they, too, have a shot at the American Dream.”
Obama boasted about record spending in several areas of the federal budget.
“And along the way, we did a few other things: The largest investment in clean energy in our history,” Obama said. “The largest investment in science and basic research that we had seen in years. Largest investment in our infrastructure since Dwight Eisenhower built the Interstate Highway System.”
According to the Treasury Department, the national debt increased $1.652 trillion in the last fiscal year, while federal receipts were $2.0377 trillion.
Social Security cost $571.5 billion, rounded to the nearest hundred million, in FY 2010. Medicare cost $513.7 billion. Medicaid cost $268 billion, and unemployment insurance cost $156.7 billion. The interest on the national debt for the year was $186.3 billion. The federal government needed to pay $176.2 billion in salaries to federal workers and $63.7 billion for insurance benefits for these workers. This adds up to up to $1.9361 trillion -- or 95 percent of the government's $2.0377 trillion in tax revenue.
After paying all those expenses, the federal government had only $101.6 billion in tax revenue remaining. Education Department programs alone cost the federal government $251.9 billion in fiscal year 2010.
Thus, the federal government had to borrow to pay the cost of operating the Department of Defense, the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department, which carry out constitutionally defined functions.
“Let me tell you something,” Obama said to applause from the crowd at Nob Hill Masonic Center in San Francisco on Apr. 20. “I will not reduce our deficit by sacrificing the things that have always made America great. The things that have made Americans prosper,”
“I won’t sacrifice our investments in education,” he said. “I will not sacrifice those. I won’t sacrifice our investments in science and basic research. I won’t sacrifice the safety of our highways or our airports. I won’t sacrifice our investment in clean energy at a time when our dependence on foreign oil is causing Americans so much pain at the pump. I will not sacrifice America’s future. That I will not do.”
House Republican leaders recently released a budget plan, which passed in the House, and is aimed at reducing the national debt and the federal deficit. President Obama released a framework for deficit reduction but not a detailed plan.
The Republican plan focuses on cutting spending and reforming entitlement programs, while Obama’s proposal focuses on increasing taxes for individual incomes of $200,000 or more and household incomes of $250,000 or more.
“If we want to reduce our deficit, yes, we need to cut spending, but we need shared sacrifice,” Obama told the San Francisco crowd. “And that means ending the tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans in this country. We can afford it.”
When he announced his fiscal plan at George Washington University on Apr. 13, Obama said, “We would not be a great country without those commitments,” referring to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and federal unemployment insurance.
In his San Francisco speech last week, Obama stressed that government spending was not the only thing that made America great.
“The America we know is great not because of our skyscrapers or the size of our GDP. It’s because we’ve been able to keep two ideas together at the same time,” Obama said. “The first idea is that we are all individuals endowed with certain inalienable rights and liberties; that we are self-reliant; we are entrepreneurs. We don't expect others to do for us what we can do for ourselves, and we don't really like people telling us what to do.”
“But the second idea -- just as important -- is that we’re all in this together; that we look out for one another; that I am my brother’s keeper; that I am my sister’s keeper,” Obama said. “That I want to make sure that a child born in a tough neighborhood has the same opportunities I had, and I do that -- I feel that way not out of charity, but because my life is richer, my life is better, when the people around me have some measure of security and some measure of dignity, and they, too, have a shot at the American Dream.”
Obama boasted about record spending in several areas of the federal budget.
“And along the way, we did a few other things: The largest investment in clean energy in our history,” Obama said. “The largest investment in science and basic research that we had seen in years. Largest investment in our infrastructure since Dwight Eisenhower built the Interstate Highway System.”
According to the Treasury Department, the national debt increased $1.652 trillion in the last fiscal year, while federal receipts were $2.0377 trillion.
Social Security cost $571.5 billion, rounded to the nearest hundred million, in FY 2010. Medicare cost $513.7 billion. Medicaid cost $268 billion, and unemployment insurance cost $156.7 billion. The interest on the national debt for the year was $186.3 billion. The federal government needed to pay $176.2 billion in salaries to federal workers and $63.7 billion for insurance benefits for these workers. This adds up to up to $1.9361 trillion -- or 95 percent of the government's $2.0377 trillion in tax revenue.
After paying all those expenses, the federal government had only $101.6 billion in tax revenue remaining. Education Department programs alone cost the federal government $251.9 billion in fiscal year 2010.
Thus, the federal government had to borrow to pay the cost of operating the Department of Defense, the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department, which carry out constitutionally defined functions.
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