Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) says she is in favor of the Republican alternatives to health care reform legislation pitched by the Democrats. She says Republican plans do not increase taxes or add to the deficit. (0:13)
Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-Texas) says that Republicans want to reform health care without raising taxes or increasing the deficit. (0:19)
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the purpose of health care reform is improving quality, lowering costs, expanding coverage and retaining choice for those who like what they already have. According to the Speaker “heath care reform is entitlement reform” and that is “essential” to reducing the deficit. (0:25)
By Sam Wechsler – Talk Radio News Service
Health care reform will drive down the federal deficit, President Obama said at a news conference Friday at the G8 summit in L’Aquila, Italy. Obama also discussed Iran, saying he hopes to soon welcome the politically-embroiled nation into the international community.
Obama said he understands Republicans’ concern for the U.S.’s massive budget deficit, but said “what cannot be denied is that the only way to get a handle on our medium and long term budget deficits is to corral and contain health care costs.” Obama said that while it is not absolutely necessary, he wants to pass a health care reform bill by the August congressional recess.
“My biggest job is to explain to the American people why this is so important and give them confidence that we can do better than we’re doing right now,” said Obama.
As for the nuclear weapons program in Iran, President Obama stated that he would evaluate that at the G20 meeting in September.
“The international community has said ‘here’s a door you [Iran] can walk through that allows you to lessen tensions and more fully join the international community.’ If Iran chooses not to walk through that door you have on record, the G8 to begin with, but I think potentially a lot of other countries that say we need to take further steps,” said Obama.
President Obama stated at the G8 summit in L’Aquila, Italy Friday that cutting health care costs will reduce the U.S. federal deficit. (0:30)
By Jonathan Bronstein, Talk Radio News Service
When financial giants Bear Stearns and AIG crashed, the American government came to their rescue to maintain stability of the economy. When “too big to fail” Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae did fail, the American government stepped in and prevented their demise.
However, “If a fiscal meltdown comes, there will be no one to bail out
America,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), adding that the U.S.’s lack of a responsible fiscal policy for the last 30 years has placed the nation in dire economic straits.
Hoyer spoke yesterday at the Bipartisan Policy Committee.
America’s 2009 budget is contending with a $1.7 trillion deficit, which will only inflate the national debt to $11 trillion. More than $3 trillion of that debt is held by foreign lenders, specifically China.
“Our debt has never been higher…(This) is our sad, debt-ridden fiscal state,” said Hoyer. As a result “hundreds of billions of dollars every year – hundreds of billions that could strengthen our national defense, or help young Americans go to college, or fund research for the next energy breakthrough – will instead go to interest payments, merely to keep us solvent.”
Hoyer stressed that Congress must take the lead and reform the nation’s economic policy in order to prevent such a devastating, demoralizing and dangerous event from ever occurring.
The first, and most important way to reshape America’s fiscal future is to reform the entitlement programs, such as Social Security Medicare and Medicaid.
“We will not bring our debt down if we do not reform entitlements,” Hoyer said, but cautioned that it will not be possible without bipartisan support. He cited Social Security reform in 1986, which was only possible because of a compromise between the Democratic Speaker of the House, Tip O’Neil, and President Ronald Reagan.
by Christina Lovato, University of New Mexico-Talk Radio News Service
This morning Congressional Democrats presented a budget they claim will make essential investments in the economic recovery and drastically reduce the deficit nearly in half by 2014.
Congressman John Spratt (D-NC) said the resolution will reduce the $1.8 trillion deficit to $586 billion by 2014.
“We’re going to take student loans and convert them into direct loans, saving $53 billion over a period of five years. We’re going to put money in the IRS, and HHS (Department of Health and Human Services) and other government agencies, and say, ‘We want to see stricter enforcement,’ because we believe program integrity initiatives like that can save as much as $50 billion…. Now that’s not a deficit that is satisfactory in and of itself but it is quite an accomplishment,” Spratt said.
Today Republicans are expected to issue their budget proposal, their second in two weeks.
“Apparently they are divided on this issue,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD). “We wanted multiple budgets as we normally do as well but we are not divided. We’re going to see a unity of purpose and unity of commitment on the Democratic side. I don’t mean unanimous but great unity.”
Spratt says the budget introduced by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and other representatives is “awfully hard to get down because it calls for some huge, substantial cuts.”
House Education and Labor Committee Chair Rep. George Miller (D-CA) said he is “excited” to see that this budget along with the economic stimulus package, for the first time, will provide more resources for early childhood education all the way up to college education.
“This budget with respect to education responds to what every business leader who has come to this Capitol, has demanded from this Congress, and that is to improve the American education system so that when we emerge out of this economic crisis we will be stronger, we will be better educated and we will be more competitive in the globalized economy that confronts us from now throughout our entire future,” Miller said.
The budget stresses the need for a clean energy economy. Congressman Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM) says the proposed budget will create energy independence and job creation.
“The Democratic budget builds on a significant funding and tax incentive for the Recovery Act by increasing our critical investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency by some 18% for 2010…. We need to do this to limit our dependence on foreign oil,” Lujan said.
Senator Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) held a press conference today to strongly oppose President Obama’s budget. Republican reports are predicting that federal debt will grow exponentially under President Obama’s plan, reaching over $14.5 trillion dollars in ten years. Sen. Gregg described the plan as the largest tax increase in U.S. history, designed to “explode the size of government” up to 23%. On the repercussions of this budget, Sen. Gregg stated, “What he is passing on down the road to our kids is a country they can’t afford, that’s absolutely sure, and that’s not right. And therefore we as Republicans think there should be a better fiscal policy.”
Senator Sessions (R-Ala.) joined the conference in agreement with Sen. Gregg, explaining that this budget means “the era of big government is back, it means the era of high taxes is back, it agrees with the often criticized philosophy that debts don’t matter.” He went on to state that every year, the interest on national debt will increase so much, that soon it will be unsustainable.
Sen. Gregg concluded the conference by saying that Senate Republicans plan to introduce amendments in order to bring the deficit back to a responsible level. However, he explained, “it’s not the minority’s job to offer budgets, it’s the minority’s job to critique the budget. We intend to critique it, however, in an aggressive way which would point us toward a better budget.” The amendments the Republicans plan to present will be aimed not only toward controlling debt but also limiting the expansion of government.
By Suzia van Swol and Candyce Torres, University of New Mexico-Talk Radio News Service
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks after the President’s Address to Congress and says that cutting the deficit in half is possible but will take a lot of hard work. Sanders discusses the stimulus package and says that, “I think the President has been very clear. We are going to use the internet, he has an inspector general, Joe Biden is going to play a roll. We want that money to do what it is supposed to do; rebuild America, create jobs, not be wasteful, or spent inefficiently.” (1:36)
by Suzia van Swol and Candyce Torres, University of New Mexico-Talk Radio News Service
After the President’s Address to Congress, Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) says that he thinks it is possible to cut the deficit in half if, “you stop this cold war defense weapons spending, and you curtail very expensive sending people to Mars, you cut back on excessive agriculture spending as he said, and you let taxes on the wealthiest people go back to where they were under Bill Clinton when the economy prospered, that you can do this.” (0:29)
