Thread: Doubts increase over Barack Obama's ambitious spending promi

From The Times
December 27, 2008

Doubts increase over Barack Obama's ambitious spending promises
Suzy Jagger in New York

Barack Obama is expected to spend so much propping up the world’s biggest economy in 2009 that the national debt will balloon by an astonishing $2 trillion (£1.36 billion). It is $2 trillion that the US Government will try to fund by selling Treasury bonds.

But there are increasing expectations in Washington that by the time Mr Obama is sworn in on January 20, the financial burden on Capitol Hill will be so overwhelming that the man tipped to be America’s most radical President since Kennedy will be unable to fund the promises that secured his entry to the White House.

Many economists, think-tanks and independent financial watchdogs believe that the combined cost of industry bailouts, soaring unemployment benefits, declining tax revenues, new fiscal stimulus packages and the $500 billion public infrastructure splurge will stymie Mr Obama’s plans to overhaul the American healthcare system and invest billions in alternative energy.

And there is increasing evidence that Mr Obama is already shifting his rhetoric to persuade Congress and the American people that his healthcare and environmental reforms should, like the bailout of the banks, be reclassified as emergency measures and therefore worthy of immediate funding.

Earlier this month, Mr Obama, who was formally announcing Tom Daschle, the Senate majority leader, as his Health Secretary, said: “The time to solve this problem is now. It’s not something that we can sort of put off because we’re in an emergency. This is part of the emergency.â€

The first thing on Obama's plate will be the restoration of the economy after the mess GWB is leaving him. In one speech Obama said that there will be change but it will not be sudden and not be soon.