Saturday, February 21, 2009

Obama Wants To Halve Budget Deficit By End Of First Term


In an article posted on Yahoo News,  President Obama will be working to cut the federal budget deficit in halve by the end of his first term.

How does he plan to do this? Mostly by scaling back Iraq war spending, raising taxes on the wealthiest and streamlining government, an administration official.

According to the article: 

 "Obama hopes to achieve his deficit-reduction goal by generating savings as he follows through on three core campaign promises over the next four years.

He has pledged to wind down the Iraq war by withdrawing most combat troops within 16 months of taking office. He also has said he would let the temporary Bush tax cuts expire in 2011 for people making more than $250,000 a year, effectively raising taxes on those people. And, he has vowed to scale back spending and improve government efficiency by eliminating programs that don't work."

To me, it seems like a lofty goal given the current economic climate. He may be relying to much on the hope that the economic climate will change sooner rather than later, which would tend to follow Obama's  personnal outlook of being an optimist. The President tends to see a glass half full rather than half empty.

I certainly hope that he is right and I wish him well because if the budget deficit is not brought under control soon the Nation will be looking at annual budget deficits of over a trillion dollars annually for many years to come.

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