Bill Clinton understood federal spending 100x better than Obama

He understood that you have to 1, raise taxes, 2, cut military spending. He also chose to cut entitlements (IMHO, a mistake) with "welfare reform" but the first 2 items are what did the job. That and spending on research and education (IE. Nat'l Inst' of Health went up a lot during his years).

Obama is setting himself up as a failure on this front. He is proposing freezing a small part of the budget (17%) to tackle a deficit that would not be eliminated if he cut this part in half instead of a freeze.

To put this in perspective, Obama is planning to "save" 250 billion over 10 years with his freeze. That , folks, is a rounding error on a deficit currently running at over 1 trillion dollars a year (10 trillion+ over 10 years) into the foreseeable future.

So, in 2012, we will still have a ginormous deficit in spite of Obama's "deficit cutting" efforts. That, is not going to make for a successful record to run on.

You have to bring in serious money and you have to cut serious money to solve a big deficit. Obama is doing neither.

Leadership is what is required, not empty posturing.

Could Ronald Reagan have done this? Would Ronald Reagan have done this?

Because when Bush's tax cuts expire, that will be the equivalent of raising taxes and you say the discretionary cuts are meaningless (so, essentially less harsh than welfare reform). So your post says "cut military spending" and not much more.

neo-liberals are one of the reasons Democrats are so confused philosophically.

any two points no matter how unbalanced or disparate those two points.

They both want everyone to like them. I hope that the president looks at Clinton's experience and thinks it's a no-go.

President Obama has the advantage of having a more progressive populace and congress than Clinton had, but that doesn't seem to be enough of a factor. It's hard to say.

since the collapse of the Soviet Union and more than a few spinless members who do not have a clue about the philosophical underpinnings of their parties are more than willing to settle for cash and the 'good life'.

It's way too sad.

Look, I disliked a lot of what Clinton did, and I do think he laid the groundwork for a lot of the crap we saw in W's term. But on this one issue, he did good. If only the US had been mature enough to continue this course, we would have tons of funds to spend right now, instead of tossing them down the interest payment hole and the war hole.

and then receive praise for understanding government spending.

You are confusing the other flaws of Clinton with this topic. He had many flaws, but deficit reduction wasn't one of them. And yes, we have a recession/depression right now, so we probably don't have a hope in hell of fixing this problem. I am arguing that if one wanted to fix it, one would proceed in a very different way. And so far the economists out there are agreeing with me that this plan is BS.

while at the same time discouraging excessive speculation and market manipulation.

Obama faces. The GOP has become much more rabidly radical right,
even more so than in the 90s.

It is not fair to compare Clinton and Obama. They operate in different
times.

:) I do get what you are saying though.

My thoughts:
I don't know why Obama is getting ahead of himself. The only thing that will reduce the deficit by meaningful amounts is RAISING TAXES and CUTTING DEFENSE SPENDING after the ECONOMY RECOVERS.

When economy recovers the total receipts grow. Even raising taxes now is unlikely to substantially improve the deficit situation.

Jobs + Economy is DIRECTLY LINKED to deficit.

Higher jobs, higher wages, higher profits = larger base on which to tax. As the same time raising taxes is a compounding effect (bigger pie + bigger slice).

If Obama REALLLY REALLY wants to cut the deficit he should put 100% into improving the job situation. Now just unemployed but meaningful wage increases (for first time in over a decade).

That combine with a future tax increase and modest (10%) reduction in military spending could easily cut deficit by 2/3rds.
Without revenue growth raising taxes and cutting spending will be both painful and ineffective.

No such luck this time.

Those unexpected capital gains taxes coming into the federal treasury sure helped back then too.

since it worked so well during his Administration? He was able to balance the budget and win a second term, even as his Party bit the dust.