Politics
Obama Fiscal Year 2014 budget proposal to kick start deficit-reduction talks
“The president got his tax hikes in January. We don’t need to be raising taxes on the American people. So I’m hopeful in the coming weeks we’ll have an opportunity, through the budget process, to come to some agreement,” he said.
Obama’s hope is to build a coalition of lawmakers willing to move toward his position, although most observers see that as unlikely.
In the latest round of an ongoing schmooze offensive, Obama had 11 Republican senators to the White House for a steak dinner on Wednesday. The White House said they had a “constructive, wide-ranging discussion” that covered how to reduce the deficit and efforts to overhaul immigration laws and tighten gun regulations.
Republican Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia, who organized the dinner for his Senate colleagues, called the session very productive.
“Sitting down to talk about how to get our arms around our debt is a good first step to what I hope will be an ongoing discussion and a path forward to solving our nation’s problems,” he said.
Both sides were unable to prevent some US$85 billion in across-the-board “sequestration” spending cuts from going into effect on March 1.
Obama’s budget proposal would replace those cuts with his original deficit-reduction proposal from December. That offer included US$930 billion in spending reductions and some US$580 billion in tax revenues.
