Obama calls a “tax summit” to discuss reforms in public spending and sacrifice
February 23, 2009 by
Filed under Politics
Washington, Feb 21 – The U.S. president, Barack Obama, called a “tax summit” for next Monday with the idea of reducing the large deficit and stabilize the state Coffers through sacrifice and public spending reforms, but today we hear voices of Skepticism about its effectiveness.
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According to the White House, the one-day summit will bring together under one roof for approximately 130 guests, including Democratic and Republican leaders of Congress, academics and economic experts, businessmen and representatives of unions and civil society.
While Obama is not the first president to Convene such a meeting, the reunion will take place at a time of grave economic crisis in the United States is the prism through which the Administration discusses almost all public policies.
In fact, given the fiscal reality of the country with a deficit of over a trillion dollars, Obama has repeatedly recognized that some of its election promises will have to wait a while.
Both at the summit in his speech before a joint session of Congress next Tuesday, Obama “will focus on the decisions to be taken to reduce the deficit and to guide the country through a sustainable fiscal path,” said Luis Miranda Efe today, a spokesman for the White House.
To some observers, however, is a euphemism to speak of “sacrifice” the budget.
During the election campaign and after winning the presidency, Obama has talked about “tough decisions” that his government will take regarding the reforms of the Social Security and Medicare programs for the elderly and retire.
Both programs face severe pressures that require urgent responses arithmetic while the population of baby boomers, the generation of Americans born after the war, between 1946 and 1964, and close to retirement.
If present trends continue, Social Security will go Bankrupt by the year 2041 and 2019 for Medicare.
For Obama, economic recovery will require long-term, no doubt, assume another task: a better control of tax expenditures.
The challenge, according to analysts, is to determine how and where to start.
The deficit will dominate the summit, which opened with statements by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, will include presentations, small group discussions and a plenary session and will be closed by Obama.
The White House insists that the summit is only the “first step” to lay the foundations for the tax, but has been careful to raise expectations about the results that could shed.
It is a trend that has shown Obama during his first months in power to generate a broad public discussion on issues, while his team develops the details of the plans behind the scenes.
Conservative groups like the Brookings Institution to ensure compliance with the goal of fiscal responsibility has to be a change of position in the political process, which now “talking about bipartisanship and encourages obstructionism and delay.”
Any action would require a dose of “Sacrifice”, according to Brookings.
But progressive groups fear that these “Sacrifice” to include cuts in social programs for the most vulnerable and concessions to conservative on fiscal matters.
Campaign for the Future of the U.S., for example, today asked their activists in their website that does not allow the debate on Monday next will be “held Hostage” by people “seeking to exploit concerns over the deficit to Dismantle social safety net for the elderly, poor and sick. ”
In that sense, Toby Chaudhuri, spokesman for the center-left group, said that institutions like yours are worried that Obama falls into the trap of fiscal Conservatives.
The distrust has risen to the proposal of the group called “Blue Dog” conservative Democrats, to establish commissions to review forms and submit plans to reduce the deficit in the long term that would be subsequently submitted to a vote in Congress.
In any case, Obama faces the dilemma of reviving the economy without worsening the deficit, but doing so to give time to leave intensive care.
