On February 14th, 2011, the president of the United States of America, delivered a speech detailing his government’s vision for the county, alongside the speech, he presented the government’s suggested changes in 2012 fiscal budget (Wasson). This paper analyzes the speech; however, it will focus on the suggested budget cuts.
The speech and budget changes
The president through his speech detailed his government’s vision for the country and supported the speech with a presentation of some budget adjustments that will see the country attain the vision as suggested.
Although the budget suggested a reduced expenditure by the government, its main role was to balance deficit reductions with priority investments; it did understand that some sectors budget in the economy could not be tampered with despite the expected changes; such areas included research and development as well as health matters.
In the section named “Terminations, Reductions, and Savings,” the government targeted 212 sectors that would suffer budget cuts; after the cuts, the expected saving in 2012 alone is more than $33 billion (Wasson).
Issues that were discussed
- Budget cuts
There was a proposed cut on expenditure catered by the government on low-income home energy assistance program (LIHEAP); this has been argued that it is likely to have an effect on over 3.5 million low-income households who are believed to use the program for lightening and cooling. The cut was expected to be about $2.5 billion; it is likely to cause pain among the Americans who are suffering reduced incomes resulting from the world financial crisis of 2007.
Another cut that pained the people were the cuts on community service block grants (CSBG), the sector was expected to lose about $350million; economic analyzers are of the opinion that the programs are crucial in the support of community-building investments; when the budget is reduced, then community development will be hampered (FactCheck.Org)
- Budget Freeze
One area that the speech targeted to freeze some expense is on non-security discretionary spending, the budget suggested a five-year budget reduction that in turn would avail finances to develop other sectors of the economy especially those that can create employment. By the end of the five years, the sector was expected to have its budget at 1.9% of the country’s GDP down from the current rate of 2.7%.
- GOP Spending Cuts
The budget targeted to cut expenditure on GOP spending cut; the proposal was the first to have a direct cut on actual spending of a program. The expected savings from the cuttings were $60.8 billion. The Republicans felt that this cuts were detrimental to the economy and was likely to lead to unemployment in the economy.
Decide what the president accomplished or did not accomplish with his speech
According to my understanding, the proposed cuts were contraction policies in the economy; however, they were strategically developed for the good of the country. The main areas that were affected were those that yielded minimal return to the Americans; this move was necessary especially in the wake of global financial crisis. Implementation of the actions suggested is what waits to be done, however since Obama’s got in office, over 60% of proposed cuts have been successful so even this is likely to follow suit (Thiess 1)
Conclusion
Obama’s 2012 budget cuts continue to raise debates among the Americans; some people feel the cuts would injure the economy while others feel the cuts would facilitate economic recovery from world financial crisis. The proposed cuts are expected to reduce the countries budget expenditure by over $33 billion in 2012.
Works Cited
FactCheck.Org. Fact Checking Obama’s Budget Speech. 18th Apr. 2011. Web.
Thiess, Rebecca. President Obama’s 2012 budget: An analysis of the budget cuts. 14th Feb. 2011. Web.
Wasson, Erik. Budget director previews cuts in Obama’s 2012 plan. 2rd Jun. 2011. Web.