CHESSNOID

We recently had the House pass a bill to try to limit or reduce future deficits or spending. That was surprising to see it pass by the majority. Even with this passing the House, it still must get passed to the Senate. I doubt that common sense stuff will get passed.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) –

A plan to bring the ballooning U.S. deficit under control passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday, requiring Congress to find savings to offset tax cuts or spending increases.

The measure, which passed 265 to 166, faces an uncertain future in the Senate. The chairman of that chamber’s budget committee, Democrat Kent Conrad, has said it does not go far enough to rein in deficits that are predicted to top a record $1.8 trillion this year.

House Democratic leaders and President Barack Obama say the “pay as you go” legislation could help impose fiscal discipline by instituting across-the-board spending cuts if the cost of new laws is not matched by increased revenues or cuts elsewhere in the budget.

Republicans derided the measure as a loophole-laden public relations exercise that would allow lawmakers to claim the mantle of fiscal responsibility while adding trillions of dollars in new spending, such as the $787 billion economic stimulus package passed in February.

The bill gives House members “an ability to put out a press release to make it look like they’re being fiscally responsible,” said Paul Ryan, the top Republican on the House Budget Committee.

Democrats face mounting public pressure over the deficit, which is estimated to equal 12.9 percent of gross domestic product this year, and Obama has urged Congress to adopt “paygo” to help him cut the deficit in half by 2013.

Obama, who praised the bill after its passage, told The Washington Post later that a new commission may be needed to examine structural reforms for addressing the budget deficit.

I guess I am very skeptical about our current President’s administration, the House and the Senate because they all were responsible in getting the economy where it is at today. Also the actions they are taking really don’t correspond with the verbal promises they are making.

It would be nice to get the economy back on track, but even these current stock rallies are getting me back in the market because banks are cooking to books to look profitable while saying they are putting away billions of dollars for the avalanche of some big losses on their real estate loan, auto loan and credit card portfolios.

I thought Craig Gordon from Politico.com had some good objective views on the current administration. His take is “Over-Promised and Under-Delivered”.

Yahoo Tech Ticker:

The deficits are “a real political problem” for President Obama, says Craig Gordon, White House editor at Politico.com, who believes the American public is getting “trillion fatigue.”

Former VP Dick Cheney famous said “deficits don’t matter” and they typically aren’t a pressing matter for average Americans, Gordon concedes. “But when you pile the deficit on top of the health-care reform, stimulus and bank bailouts – people are starting to say ‘that’s a lot of zeros’ and they’re starting to get nervous.”

The Obama administration likes to say they inherited a big deficit, which is true. But Obama is “suffering right now from what you might call over-promising and under-delivering,” Gordon says, pointing to the administration’s overly optimistic promises about employment, growth rates and stimulus earlier this year.

“The problem is, what Barack Obama is learning, which is something every President learns: even the President of the United States – the most powerful man in the world – can’t really control the U.S. economy,” he says.

In addition, Gordon says the President hasn’t convinced the American people he can cut the deficit in half, as promised, or successfully made the case that health-care reform will reduce the deficit, despite ongoing efforts to make that connection.

“It’s a three-corner bank shot – a tough sell for the American people,” Gordon says. “They don’t understand how what doctor I go to and how much I pay is going to cure a $1.8 trillion deficit. “