According to multiple news sources, President Barack Obama is scheduled to visit Hatfield on Friday as part of a tour to make a public case for his administration's plan for addressing the impending "fiscal cliff."
So what is the fiscal cliff? It's the changes expected to go into effect when the 2011 Budget Control Act expires at the end of the year. Among the changes are:
- The end of last year’s payroll tax cuts (which means a 2 percent tax increase for workers);
- The end of the 2001-2003 tax cuts;
- The beginning of heath care-related taxes set in motion by the president’s Affordable Care Act.
At the same time, spending cuts agreed on in last year's debt ceiling agreement will go into effect, meaning steep cuts to things like the defense budget and Medicare.
According to the Associated Press, both sides warn that going over the cliff could harm the fragile economic recovery, but the White House and congressional Republicans still differ on whether the answer is to raise taxes or close tax loopholes and deductions.
On Friday, the President will visit the Rodon Group, a Hatfield-based manufacturer that makes K'NEX, Tinkertoy and Angry Birds building sets, to highlight the company as an example of a business that thrives when middle-class consumers have more money in their pockets.
Pennsylvania GOP Spokesperson Valerie Caras issued an email statement suggesting that the president's time could be better spent working with Republicans in Washington.
"Considering the financial challenges our nation faces, we urge President Obama to get to work with Congressional Republicans to find a solution that prevents our economy from falling over the fiscal cliff." wrote Caras.
Read more about the president's visit here and check back with Patch on Friday for updates from the event.
If you're concerned with the deficit, you want the tax cuts to expire. Government has two sources, deficit spending, and taxation. You don't get one without the other.
Beyond that, entitlement programs make up a very, very small amount of our spending. What are your feelings on the military, which makes up at least a quarter of our spending? Anywho, you come across as a bitter piece of white trash who would rather whine about minorities then look in the mirror and realized you failed. It's not black folks fault you're barely scraping by with just two jobs; it's your fault for being an abject failure.
So??? Too funny ...
What's racist about the phrase "white trash"? Are you so whiny and sensitive that you interpret such a phrase as racist? If you can't see the obvious dog whistles sounded by Michael, again, your own ignorance is to blame. Did you even make it to high school? Entitlements make up the largest portion of the federal budget? Well, again, perhaps this is your own lack of education speaking, but military spending makes up over half of the discretionary spending budget, and increased about 9% over the past decade. By comparison,s social security and medicare aren't even on the discretionary spending agend, because unlike the military, they are self funded. That's more than other government programs, and that's not even taking into consideration how much we spend in contrast to other states. If you'd bother to read something a little more enlightening than the Daily News you'd be aware of these uncontroversial facts. I recommend the London Financial Times for starting off.
They have been debunked.
I'm well aware of how lower income issues, such as section 8, get dumped on Norristown by the rest of the county. Heck, I'm well aware of how townships like Whitpain and Plymouth drop their homeless citizens off in our neighborhood. What I'm not following is how this demonstrates an issue with section 8 program, or its recepients; seems to me like this demonstrates an issue with where section 8 being dumped on the poorest town in the county, and also an issue with the county leadership and their priorities for Norristown. If you want to get angry at someone for the volume of section 8 in Norristown, when compared to other townships, it seems like the county leadership would be the proper folk to get ticked off at. I didn't say that only landlords benefit. I said that landlords benefit far more than the recipients do, because they get automatic money from the government. Even a landlord from an upscale apartment complex in King Of Prussia can't get that kind of guarantee from their wealthy residents, as landlords for section 8 housing get from the government.
Your political views have no bearing on why I think you're an angry old white man pretending to be black. I'm well aware of plenty of black conservatives. The reason I highly suspect that you are a white man pretending to be black is the fact that you felt the need to point this out the second you got called out for sounding racist dog whistles. Usually someone insisting they are black over the internet is an indication that they're a lying white man. Your politics have nothing to do with it.
Do you people forget that it was Clinton, a democrat, who successfully destroyed welfare better than any republican candidate, and almost privatized social security?