2009-02-22 07:15:25  

Xinhua -

·Reports: Obama plans to halve federal budget deficit by 2013

U.S. President Barack Obama plans to slash the exploding federal deficit by half by 2013. ·He will try to achieve the goal by scaling back Iraq war spending, raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans. ·The president will also try to eliminate wasteful public programs.

    WASHINGTON, Feb. 21 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Barack Obama plans to slash the exploding federal deficit by half by 2013, the end of his first term, according to local media reports on Saturday.

    The president will try to achieve the goal by scaling back Iraq war spending, raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans, and eliminating wasteful public programs, the reports quoted an administration official as saying.

    "The deficit this administration inherited was 1.3 trillion dollars, or 9.2 percent of GDP. By 2013, the end of the president's first term, the budget cuts the deficit to 533 billion dollars, or 3.0 percent of GDP," the official said on condition of anonymity.

    Obama, who took the oath of office on Jan. 20, is due to deliver the outline of his administration's first budget on Thursday for the 2010 fiscal year, which begins on Oct. 1, 2009.

    The budget will reflect big increases in government spending on public works that were part of the 787-billion-dollar economic stimulus plan that Obama signed into law on Tuesday.

    Earlier on Saturday, Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address that the stimulus plan will start having an impact as soon as a few weeks from now, in the form of tax cut.

    "The Treasury Department began directing employers to reduce the amount of taxes withheld from paychecks -- meaning that by April 1, a typical family will begin taking home at least 65 dollars more every month," he announced.

    According to the president, 95 percent of all working families will get a tax cut.

    Meanwhile, Obama said that his administration will do all it can to get the ballooning budget deficit under control as the ailing U.S. economy begins to recover.

    The president said that he will convene a fiscal summit of independent experts and unions, advocacy groups and members of Congress, to discuss how to cut the nation's trillion-dollar deficit.

    U.S. federal budget deficit soared to 569 billion dollars in the first four months of the current fiscal year, the highest on record for this period, the Treasury Department reported earlier this month.

    The deficit for October 2008 through January 2009 was six times more than the red ink during the year-ago period and has already surpassed the imbalance for all of last year, which was 454.8 billion dollars, a full-year record.

    The bipartisan Congressional Budget Office has projected that the budget deficit will hit an all-time high of 1.2 trillion dollars in the current fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30, 2009.

    The estimate doesn't include the cost of Obama's economic stimulus bill.

    Private economists expect the budget deficit for this current fiscal year to hit 1.6 trillion dollars.

    In the 2007 fiscal year, the federal budget deficit dropped by 34.4 percent to 162 billion dollars, a five-year low since an imbalance of 159 billion dollars in 2002, reflecting faster growth in government revenues than spending.

    The 2002 performance marked the first budget deficit after four consecutive years of budget surpluses.  

Obama says tax cuts will be felt soon

 2009-02-22 03:24:11  

    WASHINGTON, Feb. 21 (Xinhua) --

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Saturday that the economic stimulus plan he signed into law on Tuesday will start having an impact as soon as a few weeks from now, in the form of tax cut.

    "The Treasury Department began directing employers to reduce the amount of taxes withheld from paychecks -- meaning that by April 1, a typical family will begin taking home at least 65 dollars more every month," the president announced in his weekly radio and Internet address.

    "Never before in our history has a tax cut taken effect faster or gone to so many hardworking Americans," he noted, adding that 95 percent of all working families will get a tax cut.

    Under the plan, workers can expect to see about 13 dollars extra in their weekly paychecks from a new 400-dollar tax credit to be doled out through the rest of the year. Couples can get up to 800 dollars.

    People who do not earn enough money to pay income taxes and poor families with three or more children will get an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit.

    "But as important as it was that I was able to sign this plan into law, it is only a first step on the road to economic recovery. And we cannot fail to complete the journey," said Obama.

    That will require stabilizing and repairing the banking system, and getting credit flowing again to families and businesses, and stemming home foreclosures as well.

    "And it will require doing all we can to get exploding deficits under control as our economy begins to recover," he said.

    The president said that he will convene a fiscal summit of independent experts and unions, advocacy groups and members of Congress, to discuss how to cut the nation's trillion-dollar deficit.

    Obama's 787-billion-dollar stimulus plan, a mix of federal spending and tax cuts, is designed to revive the ailing U.S. economy and save or create 3.5 million American jobs.

    While injecting money into areas such as transportation, education, energy and health care, the plan also provides aid to recession victims through tax cuts, extended unemployment benefits and short-term health insurance assistance. 

Editor: Mu Xuequan

Obama's approval rate declines in first month of administration, Basically among Repbulicans

2009-02-21 05:27:06  

    WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) --

U.S. President Barack Obama's public approval rate declined after he finished the first month in the White House, according to a poll released on Friday.

    The CNN and Opinion Research Corporation survey showed that Obama's approval rate decreased to 67 percent, nine percentage points lower than the last survey released 11 days earlier.

    The latest poll conducted Feb. 18-19 also showed that his approval rate went from 96 percent to 92 percent among Democrats, and from 50 percent to 31 percent among Republicans, while independents who favored his performance as president stood at 61 percent.

    Despite the decline, CNN polling director Keating Holland said that it did not mean the president is in serious trouble.

    "Since nearly all of the decline came among Republicans, this does not indicate that the honeymoon is already over," he said.

    As Obama's priority in his early administration, economic stimulus plan won endorsement from 60 percent of those polled.

    About 49 percent said that they believe the passage of the bill in the Congress was a major victory for Obama, and 28 percent think it was a minor accomplishment while 22 percent said it was not a positive achievement, according to the poll.

    Another poll that was released for the one-month anniversary of Obama's administration by Fox News showed Obama's job approval rating stood at 60 percent on Feb. 17-18, down from 65 percent three weeks earlier.

Editor: Mu Xuequan