Official: Obama plans to slash deficit in half

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama has committed hundreds of billions of dollars to help revive the economy and is working on a plan to cut the federal deficit in half by the end of his first term.

Obama will touch on his efforts to restore fiscal discipline at a White House fiscal policy summit on Monday and in an address to Congress on Tuesday. On Thursday he plans to send at least a summary of his first budget request to Capitol Hill. The bottom line, said an administration official Saturday, is to halve the federal deficit to $533 billion by the time his first term ends in 2013. He inherited a deficit of about $1.3 trillion from former President George W. Bush.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the president has not yet released his budget for the fiscal year 2010, which begins Oct. 1, said the deficit will be shrunk by scaling back Iraq war spending, ending the temporary tax breaks enacted by the Bush administration for those making $250,000 or more a year, and streamlining government.

“We can’t generate sustained growth without getting our deficits under control,” Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address that seemed to preview his intentions. He said his budget will be “sober in its assessments, honest in its accounting, and lays out in detail my strategy for investing in what we need, cutting what we don’t, and restoring fiscal discipline.”

Republicans were not convinced. They said Obama’s plan would hurt small businesses, including many filing taxes as individuals and possibly facing higher taxes under his plan.

“I don’t think raising taxes is a great idea,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “And when our good friends on the other side of the aisle say raising the taxes on the wealthy, what they’re really talking about is small business.”

Obama’s budget also is expected to take steps toward his campaign promises of establishing universal health care and lessening the country’s reliance on foreign oil.

Obama has pledged to make deficit reduction a priority both as a candidate and a president. But he also has said economic recovery must come first.

Last week, he signed into law the $787 billion stimulus measure that is meant to create jobs but certainly will add to the nation’s skyrocketing national debt. He also is implementing the $700 billion financial sector rescue passed on Bush’s watch; about $75 billion of which is being used toward Obama’s plan to help homeowners facing foreclosure.

source : news.yahoo.com

The Bushes move into their new Dallas home

DALLAS: A month after leaving the White House, former President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, have moved into their new Dallas home.

Bush’s motorcade drove past a security barricade last evening, bringing the former first couple to their new residence: a 1959 ranch-style brick home that sits at the top of a quiet dead end street in a wealthy Dallas neighbourhood. Bush waved to a jogger as he rode by, and the jogger waved back.

The couple’s new home has about 8,500 square feet, four bedrooms, four-and-a-half bathrooms and a wet bar. Local property records indicate the home on Daria Place is worth about $2.1 million.

The house has a wide front yard and dark shutters, with a gate at the top of the driveway that affords some privacy. The Dallas City Council last month approved installation of a security gate that will eventually block access to the street.

Dallas police and Secret Service agents have set up a barricade in recent days limiting access to the neighborhood.

source : jang.com.pk

Clinton lands in Indonesia with message for Muslims

JAKARTA: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived Wednesday in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, on her first mission to start mending US ties with the Islamic world.

She was to meet Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda and leaders of the Jakarta-based Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) later in the day on the second leg of her four-nation trip through Asia.

Wearing a red coat over a black blouse and trousers, Clinton touched down under heavy skies and was greeted by senior officials and a choir of female students from US President Barack Obama’s old primary school in Jakarta.

Obama, who spent part of his childhood here in the late 1960s, has promised to improve relations with the Islamic world after the US-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan under his predecessor George W. Bush.

“We have a responsibility to speak out and to work with the Muslim world on behalf of positive change and to enlist the help of Muslims around the world against the extremists,” Clinton told students in Japan on Tuesday.

In her first trip to a Muslim country in her new role, Clinton would also meet President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Thursday before leaving for South Korea and China.

Obama’s personal connection with Indonesia has made him hugely popular in the country of 234 million people, and expectations are high he will visit early in his presidency to reach out to the Muslim world.

source : jang.com.pk