Obama Questions GOP Budget Proposal, Pushes Tax Hikes

Written by Pat's Papers | Thursday, 14 April 2011 6:06 AM

What kind of country do you want to live in? That was the premise of President Obama’s speech on the budget yesterday writes Dan Balz of the Washington Post. Outlining his plan to fix the nation’s budget shortfalls, the president said while the GOP proposal had its good points, he worried about the direction it would take the country in: “The way this plan achieves those goals would lead to a fundamentally different America than the one we’ve known, certainly in my lifetime. In fact, I think it would be fundamentally different than what we’ve known throughout our history.” Specifically, he was taking aim at the Republican proposal to drastically alter the Medicaid and Medicare programs. He also reiterated his desire to raise taxes on the richest Americans.

Balz writes that the president had two goals in mind when giving his speech yesterday: he wanted to prove his “seriousness” about solving the deficit and he wanted to show Democrats he could stand up to Republicans on issues the party has always fought for. The challenge, Balz says, is doing both.