The following article appeared in the electronic version of the Detroit Free Press. It sounds good. Here's the catch: this doesn't mean a retreat from spending; it means an advance toward significantly higher taxes... probably to pay China for CO2 emissions.
Obama pushes pay-as-you-go systemPAYGO... TAX & SCAM... hope and change.
Congress urged to save when it spends
By BEN FELLER
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama challenged Congress on Tuesday to pay for new increases in federal benefit programs as it goes rather than sink the nation deeper into a debt, calling it a matter of public responsibility.Republicans lashed back that Obama is no voice of fiscal restraint as the deficit soars.
The president’s plan would require Congress to pay for new entitlement spending, such as health care, by raising taxes or coming up with budget cuts — a so-called pay-as-you- go system that would have the force of law. Under the proposal, if new spending or tax reductions are not offset, there would be automatic cuts in so-called mandatory programs — although Social Security payments and some other programs would be exempt.
Not noted by the president: Tuesday’s plan is a watered down version of the so-called PAYGO rules proposed last month in his budget plan.
That version would have required, on average, all affected legislation to be paid for in the first year. The new plan only requires such legislation to be financed in the coming decade. That mirrors congressional rules and reflects the likelihood that health care reform will add to the deficit in the early years.
Obama said the principle is simple: Congress can only spend a dollar if it saves a dollar somewhere else.
“It is no coincidence that this rule was in place when we moved from record deficits to record surpluses in the 1990s — and that when this rule was abandoned, we returned to record deficits that doubled the national debt,” Obama said, flanked at the White House by supportive Democratic lawmakers.
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