In “The Obama Budget,” an article published in the February 23 issue of The Collegian, I talked about President Obama’s proposed budget for the 2012 fiscal year.
Since then, the president has made some adjustments.
Unfortunately, I still feel that the president simply does not understand the flaws of his proposals and that major changes need to be made.
The president’s initial plan, announced in February, was met with groans from the Republican side of the aisle and failed to address our country’s spending issues, the most obvious of which are entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare.
On April 5, House Republicans announced their own plan, to which President Obama offered a response and an alternative plan.
In the speech he gave at George Washington University April 13, the president had a strong sound of partisanship and did not hesitate to lash out against Republicans and their proposed budget, which is being paraded by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis.
At one point in the speech, Obama, referring to the Republican Party said, “their vision is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact of America.”
As our president, I feel Obama failed to properly get his message across and instead took this opportunity for political gains. After all, Obama does have a tough election season coming up and could likely use all of the help he can get.
While the president made a point to hit on key aspects of his policy, he did an abysmal job of actually offering his solutions to the subject and explaining the kinds of policies that he would enact.
Though the entire budget is too large to fully dissect, one of Obama’s provisions is a major blow to the economy and will delay any major job creation.
This is his job–killing tax increases.
Higher tax revenue leads to larger government and increased bureaucratic waste. The Republican plan seeks to keep taxes low, scale back government and promote American prosperity.
Perhaps the biggest killer of Obama’s tax plan is the burden that it places on small businesses.
Even though President Obama would love to increase taxes on the wealthy, his definition of “wealthy” is wrong and needs to be adjusted.
In Obama’s view, the wealthy are individuals who bring in an income of $250,000 or more per year. While that is a large sum of money, groups like the American Small Business League are concerned because small businesses fall into that tax bracket as well.
It is proven by U.S. Census data that small businesses are a huge driving force in American job creation. Obama’s plan to raise federal taxes on them is a mistake.
As pointed out by the league’s President Lloyd Chapman, not only did Obama give small businesses a meager amount of stimulus funds, he now wants to raise taxes on them.
Not only can you not tax and spend your way out of an economic crisis, putting the burden on small businesses only hinders progress.
I think the president really needs to take a step back and reconsider some of these budget provisions, particularly the ones that harm small businesses and those employed by them.
