Obama is Bill Clinton -- A Corporate President

Unlike Bill Clinton, who was often the last to leave the party, President Obama was all business on his trip to San Francisco.

There was no photo op with local Democrats, no visit to Glide Memorial Church or the Delancey Street Foundation, and
no very late after-event supper at the Steiner Street digs of Susie Tompkins Buell and Mark Buell, with the likes of Robin
Williams, Robert Redford, Willie Brown, Carole Shorenstein- Hays or Paul Pelosi stopping by - all of which Clinton did
when he visited here during his presidency.

"He's just not a party guy like Bill," former state Democratic Party Chairman Art Torres said of Obama.

"It's just not in his nature to go down like Bill to the Slanted Door and talk with the owner until after the place closes,"
Torres said. "He's much more of a hamburger, go to bed and get up early kind of guy."

DIRECTOR ORSZAG:
Relative to our previous numbers, the Midsession Review shows a smaller 2009 deficit, but larger out-year deficit. Let me explain briefly why. First, with regard to the 2009 deficit, we now expect that the policies put in place to repair the financial system would cost taxpayers less than originally expected. In particular, we have decided to remove from the budget the financial stabilization placeholder that was originally included in our February and May documents and that seemed prudent earlier this year. We've also lowered our estimate for the expected cost of FDIC bank rescues. And the result of these changes is a $262 billion improvement in the projected 2009 deficit.

That deficit is now projected to be $1.58 trillion, or 11.2 percent of GDP.

Second, with regard to the out-year deficit, the changes are driven primarily by changes in economic assumptions -- and again, Christy is going to talk at more length about those. But what happens as you revise the economic projections to reflect the deeper recession that has occurred is that certain spending programs such as UI benefits and food stamps automatically increase and revenues automatically decline. And although this is helpful in stimulating demand in the short term, it also leads to higher medium-term deficits, both directly because the jumping-off point is different than it was before, and also indirectly, because it adds the interest costs on a higher accumulated debt.

Over the next 10 years we expect to add $2 trillion to the projected deficit, compared to our last projection made on February's economic assumption, and it brings the total 10-year deficit for the 2010-2019 period to a little over $9 trillion, in particular $9.05 trillion -- largely in line with CBO's June projection of the administration's.

The out-year deficits hover in the range of 4 percent of GDP, higher than desirable. It is worth noting, however, that by 2019, the difference between revenue and non-interest spending -- that is what is known as the primary deficit -- is well under 4 percent of GDP and is actually 0.6 percent of the economy. The bulk of the deficit, therefore, in 2019, for example, reflects interest payments, which, in turn, almost entirely reflect the cost of the debt accumulated in the past and the need to run short-term deficits to help the economy recover from the most severe downturn since the Great Depression.

Whatever their cause, the administration is very concerned about these out-year deficits, and getting those deficits under control is a top priority of the administration. We're in the midst of the policy process surrounding the fiscal year 2011 budget, and that process will include proposals to put the nation back on a fiscally sustainable path. I'm not going to comment on any specific regarding the policies that will be part of that fiscal year 2011 budget, but let me make a few general comments.

First, since it's desirable to allow the deficit to increase during an economic downturn, deficit reductions -- (inaudible) --on the out-years after the economy has recovered. Importantly, the first step is to stop making those long-term deficits worse, which is why the administration supports statutory pay-as-you-go legislation so that any new tax or entitlement initiatives are fully paid for.

I note that if we had abided by this approach during the previous administration, the projected 10-year deficit would be $5 trillion smaller. In other words, more than half of the projected deficits over the next 10 years are directly attributable to the failure to follow pay-as-you-go rules in the past.

In addition to avoiding making the problem worse -- and as many of you heard me emphasize in the past -- in order to make forward progress on starting to fill in that hole, the key thing we need to address is the key driver of our long-term deficits, which are health care costs. If we slow the rate of health care spending by just 15 basis points per year -- that's .15 percentage points per year -- the savings for Medicare and Medicaid equal the fiscal impact from eliminating the entire 75-year deficit in Social Security.

We simply can't put the federal government back on a fiscally sustainable path without slowing the rate of health care costs in the long run, and that's why the administration is insistent that health care reform be not only deficit-neutral over the next 10 years, but also leaving and putting in place structural changes that will lead to reductions in the deficit thereafter.

So let me be very clear. I know there are going to be some who say that this report proves that we can't afford health reform. I think that has it backwards. (Inaudible) -- -- the fiscal gap is precisely why we must enact well-designed and fiscally responsible health reform now, health reform, again, that is deficit-neutral over the next decade and reduces it thereafter. Given the long-term nature of that problem, we simply can't afford to wait.

Beyond pay-as-you-go rules and addressing health care in a fiscally responsible way, there are additional steps that will be necessary. We've already put forward a variety of measures -- for example, reform to government contracting. And we will have a lot more to say about other measures as part of the fiscal year 2011 budget.
http://whitehouse.blogs.foxnews.com/2009/08/25/obama-budget-office-10-year-deficit-grows-by-2-trillion-unemployment-to-hit-10-economic-growth-due-in-4th-quarter/
(from fox news, just for you!)