US President Barack Obama is to offer cuts to Social Security and other entitlement programs in a budget proposal aimed at swaying Republicans to compromise on a deficit-reduction deal, a senior administration official said yesterday.
Under a proposal that would cut the deficit by US$1.8 trillion over 10 years, the president would offer to apply a less generous measure of inflation to calculate cost-of-living increases, the official said on condition of anonymity.
That change would result in lower payments to a number of beneficiaries of the Social Security program for retirees and is staunchly opposed by many congressional Democrats, as well as labor and retiree groups.
Obama would agree to cuts to other so-called entitlement programs, the official said.
However, the president is to only accept these spending cuts if congressional Republicans, for their part, agree to higher taxes, the official added. The president’s budget proposal is due to be laid out in full on Wednesday.
The president’s renewed offer of fiscal negotiations with congressional Republicans follows a series of bitter battles over taxes and spending that date back to 2011.
Obama is eager to put the issue of deficit reduction behind him and move on to other priorities, which include immigration and gun control legislation.
“This isn’t about political horse trading,” the official said. “It’s about reducing the deficit in a balanced way that economists say is best for the economy and job creation.”
Still, several attempts to reach an agreement balancing spending cuts with tax increases have failed, and prospects for a deal remain doubtful. US House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, who let taxes rise for the wealthiest Americans earlier this year, has said any further revenue increases are off the table.
The president also wants to undo at least some of the US$85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts that went into effect last month through the process known as sequestration.
Obama’s budget for the fiscal year that starts on Oct. 1 is to contain a proposal to expand access to early childhood education, the official said. That program will be paid for by increases in tobacco taxes, the official added.
In addition, the president will seek to increase revenues by placing a US$3 million upper limit on tax-preferred retirement accounts and by barring people from collecting disability benefits and unemployment insurance at the same time, the official said.
Analysts who have seen early drafts of the budget proposal say the president was considering cuts to Medicare through reducing payments to healthcare providers, but also by requiring wealthier beneficiaries to pay more out of pocket.
Reductions to social security and Medicare benefits are highly unpopular among many of the president’s strongest supporters and groups have already mobilized to oppose them.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
NUCLEAR WARNING: Elites are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers, perhaps because they have access to shelters, Tulsi Gabbard said After a trip to Hiroshima, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday warned that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Gabbard did not specify her concerns. Gabbard posted on social media a video of grisly footage from the world’s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. On Aug. 6, 1945, the US obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb’s effects. Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving abut 74,000 people dead by the
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to visit Canada next week, his first since relations plummeted after the assassination of a Canadian Sikh separatist in Vancouver, triggering diplomatic expulsions and hitting trade. Analysts hope it is a step toward repairing ties that soured in 2023, after then-Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau pointed the finger at New Delhi’s involvement in murdering Hardeep Singh Nijjar, claims India furiously denied. An invitation extended by new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Modi to attend the G7 leaders summit in Canada offers a chance to “reset” relations, former Indian diplomat Harsh Vardhan Shringla said. “This is a
RSS