http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2010/02/opposing-view-were-making-tough-choices.htmlOpposing view: We're making tough choices
Our budget spurs job creation, puts U.S. on fiscally sustainable path.
The White House declined to provide an opposing view to today's editorial. Excerpts from budget director Peter Orszag's introduction to the Obama administration's 2011 budget:
After a year in which we took immediate and unprecedented action to rescue the economy from the brink of a second Great Depression, the 2011 budget takes steps to jump-start job creation, strengthen the economic security of middle-class families, and make the tough choices to put our nation back on the path to fiscal sustainability.
When the president took office, the economy was on the brink of a depression. The economic crisis required that we take immediate and extraordinary steps to prevent a complete economic collapse that would have caused millions more to lose their jobs. Not all of the efforts we undertook to avoid a deeper recession were popular. Nonetheless, the president did what was right for our country's future: signing into law the Recovery Act to jump-start economic growth and taking steps to prevent the collapse of the financial system.
A year later, the economy is back from the brink — and is growing again. This "statistical recovery," however, is cold comfort for the millions of Americans who have lost their job. The president has therefore called for a package to spur job creation now — including small-business tax cuts, and investments in clean energy and infrastructure.
To sustain job creation and economic growth into the years ahead and provide room for the private sector to expand, we are also making tough choices in the budget: cutting what doesn't work or isn't necessary and investing in what will help to expand the economy and employment in the coming years.
The budget thus institutes a three-year non-security discretionary freeze that will save $250 billion over the next decade.
As I have said many times before and will again (since it's still true!), the key to our long-term fiscal future is fiscally responsible health insurance reform. All our steps to rein in the deficit will be for naught if we do not reduce the rate of health care cost growth over time.
If we follow the plans laid out in the budget, I am confident that we will be able to spur job creation now and in years to come and put our nation back on a fiscally sustainable path, which is critically important to the future growth and prosperity of the United States.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
