Tuesday, February 9, 2016
Obama’s Last Budget, and Last Budget Battle With Congress
On Tuesday, Obama sent the last budget proposal of his administration to Congress. The budget asks for over $4 trillion for the fiscal year 2017 (starting October 1st). Due primarily to a rise in entitlement eligibility and a December tax cut, the 2017 deficit is predicted to increase to $616 billion from $438 billion last year. This deficit will be approximately 3.3 percent of the country's GDP; economists say that a deficit below 3 percent of a country's GDP is necessary for "economic prosperity." What do you think about the predicted deficit? Do we need to scale back entitlements and/or other government programs to reduce it? Or should we raise taxes to pay for the increase in the number of people eligible for social security?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I think the severity of the predicted deficit is being exaggerated. The deficit will initially increase if Obama's last budget proposal is approved, but Obama also proposed ways to bring the deficit back down: by reducing spending and raising taxes on the wealthy. I think military spending should be reduced, and to pay for social security benefits for more people, taxes could be raised. I think Obama's budget proposal should be approved because it's necessary - we need to improve our cybersecurity.
ReplyDeleteThe predicted deficit is high, and I think raising taxes on the wealthy isn't the way to bring the number down. The answer for everything can't just be to tax. Reduced military spending is a much better idea but Obama should really reconsider how much money he intends on spending
ReplyDeleteA deficit of nearly $200 billion is quite extreme, and with tax cuts and military spending increases makes sense. In order to reduce that deficit, and to finance the growing costs of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, taxes should be raised, and military spending should be reduced, given that half of the proposed budget is slated to go to the military.
ReplyDeleteThe increase in the deficit is extremely high, but some of that spending is necessary for things like the cybersecurity bill. However, there is plenty of wasteful spending, and not just on the military, this needs to be eliminated in order to create a more efficient government.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the increase in deficit is extremely high. There is a ton of unnecessary spending. An increase in taxing will have a little effect on the large deficit. (By the way, this is Kasta, I had to change the name of my YouTube account and it changed my name here too.)
ReplyDeleteThis deficit is extremely high and will only keep growing unless we cut back on superfluous spending. This cybersecurity bill is crucial but in order to compensate for its effect on the deficit, spending in the military must be cut as well as other government programs. The solution is not as simple as increasing taxes.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that the solution cannot be to simple raise taxes. I believe a reevaluation in the tax code may be in order but in order for the country to actually turn the deficit around we need to look at bad, costly programs and military and forge in policy in order to make a real impact.
ReplyDelete