Haven't the Democrats been the ones saying the problem with Social 
Security and Medicare is that we simply aren't pouring enough money into 
them ?

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http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090107/D95IJHTO0.html

Obama taps spending watchdog, eyes Social Security
 
Jan 7, 6:17 PM (ET)

By JENNIFER LOVEN
 

WASHINGTON (AP) - Pointing with concern to "red ink as far as the eye 
can see," President-elect Barack Obama pledged Wednesday to tackle out-
of-control Social Security and Medicare spending and named a special 
watchdog to clamp down on other federal programs - even as he campaigned 
anew to spend the largest pile of taxpayer money in history to revive 
the sinking economy.

The steepness of the fiscal mountain he'll face beginning Jan. 20 was 
underscored by stunning new figures: an estimate that the federal budget 
deficit will reach $1.2 trillion this year, by far the biggest ever, 
even without the new stimulus spending.

The incoming president has walked this same tightrope each day this week 
- advocating fiscal discipline and taxpayer largesse together at nearly 
every turn, though in every case with little detail to back it up. With 
less than two weeks to go before taking the helm at the White House, 
he'll make the same pitch on Thursday, delivering a speech laying out 
why he wants Congress to quickly pass his still-evolving economic plan.

Last year's U.S. deficit set its own record, but that $455 billion will 
be dwarfed by this year's. The new estimate, by the nonpartisan 
Congressional Budget Office, represents more than 8 percent of the 
entire national economy.

 
(AP) President-elect Barack Obama gestures during a news conference at 
his transition office in...
Full Image 
 
 
Still, Obama said "an economic situation that is dire" requires 
immediate and bold action with unprecedented tax cuts and federal 
programs. More bad news is expected Thursday and Friday on U.S. layoffs, 
and stocks plummeted anew on Wednesday, wiping out gains from the first 
week of the new year.

Obama gave his first ballpark estimate of the total amount of the 
stimulus package expected to emerge from negotiations between his team 
and Capitol Hill, saying it is likely to hover around $775 billion over 
two years. That's about $400 billion less than outside economists have 
said might be needed to jolt the economy but at the top of the range 
that Obama aides and congressional leaders have discussed publicly.

"We're going to have to jump-start this economy," Obama said. "That's 
going to cost some money."

The president-elect said concerns about increasing the deficit to 
unmanageable levels swayed him against the higher figures advocated by 
some.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also pressed for passage of a recovery bill, 
though the mid-February timeline she offered represented another slip in 
the date by which the package would be ready for Obama's signature. 
Initially, the goal was to have it finished by the time he takes office 
a week from next Tuesday.

 
Obama's repeated emphasis amid the stimulus talk on a need for spending 
control is aimed in part at attracting more support from deficit hawks 
in Congress.

He said Wednesday, without details, that his initial budget proposal 
next month will include "some very specific outlines" of how he plans to 
tackle spending. That extends to the ballooning and so-far unsolvable 
fiscal problem presented by the Social Security and Medicare programs, 
which Obama promised would be "a central part" of his deficit-reduction 
plan.

The stimulus package is expected to easily pass Congress, now controlled 
by solid Democratic majorities in both houses. But since it is the first 
major legislative test of an administration that promised to usher in a 
new era of bipartisan cooperation, and a measure of such enormous scope 
and import, Obama doesn't want to see it approved on a merely party-line 
vote.

On Wednesday, he made good on a campaign promise and introduced his 
choice for a new White House post he is creating: chief performance 
officer. Nancy Killefer, a professional efficiency expert, is charged 
with scouring the federal budget to eliminate programs that don't work 
and improve those that do. Obama called her appointment "among the most 
important that I will make."

"We committed to changing the way our government in Washington does 
business so that we're no longer squandering billions of tax dollars on 
programs that have outlived their usefulness or exist solely because of 
the power of a lobbyist or an interest group," Obama said.

 
Killefer, the director of a management consulting firm and a former 
assistant treasury secretary will be Obama's hatchet woman, with power 
to recommend directly to him the slashing of programs and projects 
government-wide. She'll help agencies set performance standards and hold 
managers accountable.

But she also will run up against a long history of other chief 
executives' similar promises under different titles that have fallen 
short.

She said the bureaucracy's entrenched problems have taken decades to 
develop and will take time to fix. But she said it would be different 
this time. "I have seen it done," Killefer said at Obama's side.

Obama has to give Congress in early February a budget request - at least 
the bare bones of one - covering spending for the next fiscal year. 
Because that's so soon after he takes over the executive branch of 
government, his submission won't be anything like the usual one that 
fills several volumes and hundreds of pages.

Pelosi, speaking before the House Democratic Steering and Policy 
Committee, offered her own assurance that the stimulus plan would be 
responsible and that Democrats are committed to long-term fiscal 
discipline.

Economist Martin Feldstein joined others talking to the congressional 
panel to endorse the need for a big short-term spending package. But he 
also warned against anything that could create a spending habit and 
swell the deficit even further. "There should be an exit strategy," he 
said.

For all the talk of belt-tightening, minority Republican leaders sounded 
only cautiously optimistic.

"We cannot borrow and spend our way back to prosperity when we're 
already running an annual deficit of more than one trillion dollars," 
House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said. "I was pleased to 
hear the president-elect say yesterday that we need to stop just talking 
about our national debt and actively confront it."

CMPQwk 1.42-21 9999 
Democrats --  The party of economic destruction ....


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