282875560奥巴马演讲-削减财政预算
Well, good afternoon, everybody.Now, I realize that the last thing you want to hear on New Year\'s Eve is another speech from me.But I do need to talk about the progre that\'s being made in Congre today.For the last few days, leaders in both parties have been working toward an agreement that will prevent a middle cla tax hike from hitting 98 percent of all Americans, starting tomorrow.Preventing that tax hike has been my top priority, because the last thing folks like the folks up here on this stage can afford right now is to pay an extra $2,000 in taxes next year.Middle-cla families can\'t afford it.Businees can\'t afford it.Our economy can\'t afford it.Now, today it appears that an agreement to prevent this New Year\'s tax hike is within sight, but it\'s not done.There are still iues left to resolve, but we\'re hopeful that Congre can get it done.But it\'s not done.And so part of the reason that I wanted to speak to all of you here today is to make sure that we emphasize to Congre and that members of both parties understand that all acro America, this is a preing concern on people\'s minds.Now, the potential agreement that\'s being talked about would not only make sure that taxes don\'t go up on middle-cla families, it also would extend tax credits for families with children.It would extend our tuition tax credit that\'s helped millions of families pay for college.It would extend tax credits for clean energy companies that are creating jobs and reducing our dependence on foreign oil.It would extend unemployment insurance to 2 million Americans who are out there still actively looking for a job.I have to say that ever since I took office, throughout the campaign, and over the last couple of months, my preference would have been to solve all these problems in the context of a larger agreement, a bigger deal, a grand bargain whatever you want to call it, that solves our deficit problems in a balanced and responsible way, that doesn\'t just deal with the taxes but deals with the spending in a balanced way so that we can put all this behind us and just focusing on growing our economy.But with this Congre, that was obviously a little too much to hope for at this time.It may be we can do it in stages.We\'re going to solve this problem instead in several steps.Last year in 2011, we started reducing the deficit through $1 trillion in spending cuts those have already taken place.The agreement being worked on right now would further reduce the deficit by asking the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans to pay higher taxes for the first time in two decades.And keep in mind that some of these spending cuts that Congre has said will automatically go into effect have an impact on our Defense Department, but they also have an impact on things like Head Start.And so there are some programs that are scheduled to be cut that we\'re using an axe instead of a scalpel may not always be the smartest cuts.And so that is a piece of busine that still has to be taken care of.And I want to make clear that any agreement we have to deal with these automatic spending cuts that are being threatened for next month, those also have to be balanced because remember, my principle has always been let\'s do things in a balanced, responsible way.And that means that revenues have to be part of the equation in turning off the sequester, in eliminating these automatic spending cuts, as well as spending cuts. Now, the same is true for any future deficit agreement.Obviously, we\'re going to have to do more to reduce our debt and our deficit.I\'m willing to do more, but it\'s going to have to be balanced.We\'re going to have to do it in a balanced, responsible way.For example, I\'m willing to reduce our government\'s Medicare bills by finding new ways to reduce the cost of health care in this country.That\'s something that we all should agree on.We want to make sure that Medicare is there for future generations.But the current trajectory of health care costs is going up so high we\'ve got to find ways to make sure that it\'s sustainable.But that kind of reform has to go hand-in-hand with doing some more work to reform our tax code so that wealthy individuals, the biggest corporations can\'t take advantage of loopholes and deductions that aren\'t available to most of the folks standing up here aren\'t available to most Americans.So there\'s still more work to be done in the tax code to make it fairer, even as we\'re also looking at how we can strengthen something like Medicare.
