*President Barack Obama, risking liberal anger and Republican scorn, is turning his attention to the nation’s crushing debt with an anti-deficit framework that tackles politically sensitive health care programs while also increasing taxes.
Today, the president plans to deliver a speech outlining his approach to reducing the deficit by lowering spending in Medicare and Medicaid, raising taxes on the wealthy and cutting defense costs. Obama’s address will draw contrasts with a Republican plan that cuts $5 trillion in spending over the next decade and which the White House says unfairly singles out middle-class taxpayers, older adults and the poor.
This new clash, just a week after the president announced he would seek re-election, ensures that the nation’s fiscal health will be at the center of the 2012 presidential campaign. For the past two months, Obama has been arguing to protect his core spending priorities, including education and innovation. His turn to deficit reduction reflects the pressures he faces in a divided Congress and with a public increasingly anxious about the nation’s debt, now exceeding $14 trillion.
The president is wading into a potential political thicket. Liberals fear he will propose cuts in prized Democratic programs like Medicare and Medicaid, the health care programs for older adults, the disabled and the poor, and in Social Security. Moderates worry that his plan could unravel bipartisan deficit-cutting negotiations. And Republicans already are poised to reject any proposal that includes tax increases.
Read/learn MORE at Yahoo News.
If he is..it’s a rock and a hard place be couched himself between by his perceived lack of leadership.
Here we go again. Some Obama apologist trying to cover for his no progressive behavior. Obama is not caught between an rock and a hard place. He never had a problem carrying out the Republican agenda when he escalated their war, draining the economy of $200 billions a year. He never had a problem granting them their tax cuts while cutting social programs.
As Glen Ford said:
“Still unwilling or unable to admit that they were “psyched out” by Barack Obama and his corporate handlers, Lefties search for psychological reasons that the First Black President has been such a disappointment. It’s the failure to fight thing, or the lack of vision thing, or the failure to communicate thing, they say. “It isn’t that Obama has trouble conveying his vision, it’s that his actual vision is unacceptable to progressives.” As for his willingness to fight, Obama fought his own left wing, and “stomped their butts into the dirt” over his corporate health care plan.”
Reds; Opinions are like Assholes, Everybody has one! So I guess that means you’re entitled to be an Asshole just like Glen Ford…
Right back at you.
But of course, I understand your dilema. You can’t counter the truth in Glen Ford’s assessment, so nothing left but to show your ass.
You seem to have no problem with Obama’s habit of kissing Republicans ass.
And that’s not an opinion, that’s fact.
Asshole!