Why are we not discussing defunding Illegals in this country. School, hospitalization, housing , food stamps are a few things that come to mind. Hell mabywe wouldn't have to dip into our seniors social security that they have paid into all there working lives or taxing small business, farmers and mom and pop stores out of existence. Now that is what I would call deficit cutting and job creating.

 Why are we not discussing defunding Illegals in this country. School, hospitalization, housing , food stamps are a few things that come to mind. Hell mabywe wouldn't have to dip into our seniors social security that they have paid into all there working lives or taxing small business, farmers and mom and pop stores out of existence. Now that is what I would call deficit cutting and job creating.

Obama and his stupid administration of progressive/communists get us into an historic high deficit and now guess who gets to pay? Throw ALL of these Dems out in 2012. And, DO NOT pass the Dream Act for Obama to gain 12 million illegal votes in 2012. This administration is a farce and a detriment to this entire country. Thanks Dems; now we'll all be broke!

So much for Obama's "Spreading the Wealth"; hell Health Care isn't even into consideration yet. How does he thinks that's going to work? That's what America gets for voting in a left elitist liberal Harvard lawyer. He has NO idea what the hell he's doing and Washington is full of them from Pelosi and Reid on down. What a crock.

This is just Rep., way to start the end of S.S. they should be taxing the wealthy.Lets throw grandma,the disabled in the street. Mitch as a corporate flunky should be the end of his ever being elected again..

Liberals are so damn stupid. Nancy Pelosi said it all yesterday during her rant on the House floor. By extending the tax rates - it is NOT costing us $700 billion dollars. It's NOT costing us one single penny. You are letting the "rich" keep more of THEIR OWN MONEY. Her speech basically said this...we are working for the Government. They control how much money we get to keep. They think our money is theirs - and they get to TAKE however much they want and leave us with the rest.

Another great comment she made was that unemployment creates jobs and by giving tax cuts to the rich will not create jobs. Um, the last time I checked, unemployment doesn't create jobs - it lets people pay their current bills and pretty much nothing else. Who is getting a job by being UNEMPLOYED? The rich, taking their own money - invest, start companies that PROFIT (isn't that what they're supposed to do anyway?) and then employ people. A person making $250,000 or less can't hire many people - especially when they're taking home maybe $65,000. When was the last time you knew someone who makes $40,000 hiring a bunch of people?

Liberals are just plain stupid and want to create more money for them to spend, by creating the biggest tax hike in our history. Even if they collect the additional $700 billion in revenue generated by taxing the "rich" who make over $250,000, do you SERIOUSLY think they will use that money to pay down the debt? HELL NO! Obama already said he's got other ideas to use that money.

Don't be fooled by them.

I thought the message from the mid-term elections was lower taxes, lower spending, lower debt. Now we have a proposal to pare back tax deductions in exchange for lower rates. However, the net effect is a tax increase and if this were to occur, the rates would slowly creep back up in the future while the deductions would be gone forever. I know the Democrats are intent on leading us to fiscal destruction. Any Republican that votes for this plan must not have been paying attention. NO MORE TAXES - FORCE THE GOVERNMENT TO LIVE WITHIN ITS MEANS !!! 100% SPENDING CUTS !!!

Why not discuss defunding illegals in this country. Housing, hospitalisation, food stamps, schools no telling what it is costing. No you would rather talk about how we can take something away from our seniors, or raise taxes on small farms, mom and pop stores people who have paid taxes all there working lives.

The fact of the matter is, promises have been made to Americans by leaders of both parties that are not possble to fulfill. No one can ever really know motives but the idea that the polititians didn't realize the promises were actually lies doesn't fly in the face of their continued actions decade after decade in adding to those promises.

So what to we do now? We suffer. First, if we attempt tosignificantly raise taxes on the super rich, they will just leave - the world is so small and this small group of people is so powerful, I don't believe it is possible to sieze their money. Secondly, if the super rich hunker down like the rest of America has been doing for the past 2 years, the economy will fall almost immediately. These few people control 80 - 90 % of the capital in America and, if they stop spending that capital, what do you think is going to happen to the economy? Thirdly, there is a notion that the people who have all this wealth "stole" it. They, in fact, "created it". The billions (trillions ?) of dollars Bill Gates "possesses" didn't exist 20 years ago - Microsoft "created" it by bring products to market that didn't exist before. This is true only (or especially) in America - our economic system is unique in the world. If we shut this down, do you think good things will happen? Did you ever read the fairy tale of the goose that layed golden eggs? You need to.

Enough already! Forget about "accountability; the problem is that politicians have no liability for their actions. Hold them responsible, not just accountable. For example, Republicans want to keep the Bush tax cuts... fine, put your money where your mouths are. Take two years of continued cuts and prove job growth greater than the norm... or concede power to the Democrats. Put up or shut up. From all I've seen, Republican administrations have delivered net job losses despite the years of cuts to the "job creators." Put up or shut up.

 Thanks Obama. You spend trillions u dont have and put it on the backs of us  countrymen.  Resign Now please. You are trashing our country.  You worry about the DMZ and dont do SH!T about our borders. Get out, get out now, go home. You disgust me.

Baucus and his fellow supporters that oppose the plan are only looking out for themselves and their special interest groups. They will be voted out of office in the next one or two elections.

how can we cut the debt if we borrow 40 cents of every dollar we spend?

It would eliminate or scale back tax breaks — including the child tax credit, mortgage interest deduction and deduction claimed by employers who provide health insurance — in exchange for rate cuts on corporate and income taxes. It would raise the federal gasoline tax 15 cents a gallon to fund transportation programs.

We pay for the deficit off with the money taken away from hard working Americans. We allow more than 2/3 of corporations to NOT pay income taxes by taking deductions away from hard working Americans. The American dream of owning a house with a white picket fence is being replaced with an American Nightmare of owning a home with a leaky roof and dilapidated picket fence.

Bush-Cheney started the the budget fiasco after Clinton delivered budget surpluses. Bush governed a period of pork barrel, a costly war and corruption. Obama has been doing the right thing to get this country back on track. It is time to cut the defense budget, farm subsidies, foreign aid to nations that disregard the USA foreign initiatives, and federal construction projects.

It is also time to raise the social security retirement age requirements. In addition it is time to grant social security payments on the basis of need rather than an entitlement for everyone. A person with adequate private pension and investment resources should not receive social security payments.

The more I read about this deficit reduction plan, the more I'm inclined to change my opposition to it. Overall, while I too am not happy about the give away to the rich, the pain seems to be fairly and justly distributed to all segments of our society while leaving a safety net for the most vulnerable. Medicare spending must be contained. Even Social Security must be cut back and with people living longer, it is really difficult to see why raising the retirement age can't be adopted, it only reflects what is really happening in our society. This is a decent compromise, if our Country is going to be able to avoid going bankrupt.

Let's include cutting all the benefits from elected and government employees, their benefit packages cost incredible amounts AND they don't worry about the rest of us loosing ours since theirs are protected. I say let's be fair.

Stop wasting money in all government offices. Stop earmarks. Stop benefiting friends, family and people who gave you "gifts". We pay for all costs in elected officials offices, if they want lots of employees, let them do it the regular way by increasing their profits for a change so they can pay for them. Want a raise? Save money or generate it, that's where your money will come from.

Fire anyone who is corrupt (most of them), get rid of lobbyists and anyone who takes money from any special interest group money shouldn't buy you favors nor is the accepting of ANY gifts legal. They say give corporations and the rich more tax breaks because they will create the jobs. Really? They already get 98% of the wealth, get to keep most of the money they make (unlike us who barely make do) and they want to give them more? Sounds to me like the ones who want this to be passed are the ones who got the most from them (fire them).

We should fire all those that signed that stupid letter stating they won't do anything or let anything get done for the next 2 years unless they get their way! They're making millions, getting benefits we could only dream about and they aren't going to do anything? If this was the private sector they'd be fired for not being productive. Bunch of jackasses I say.

Unless Obama steps up to the plate, tightens his belt and puts his pants on and declares he will do what's best for the country, even if people complain and then does it, I will expect him to be fired as well. If I was president I wouldn't stand for all this foolishness going on now. I'd put a stop to it, put corrections in, cut the budget ALL OVER and tell people: times are tough but we've put a solution in place, we will help those that need it and those that don't need it will have to put up with our resolutions and then DO IT. If people complain, so be it. FIX THIS MESS, stop all the talk, slash defense, stop these corrupt people.

Oh, I would also make McCain retire, he's a complete idiot now, makes no sense and is showing just how big of a homophobe he really is, stop wasting money on all these studies- you've done them already and the results are in. Shut up.

If we don't implement this plan it will be financial catastrophy for our country. It's time to swallow the bitter pill!!!!

I have mixed feelings on this. From what I've read, there are certainly things in this plan that I DON'T LIKE - both reductions in tax credits that I benefit from and future cuts in SS that I will benefit from. Well that sounds kind of selfish, doesn't it? But the bottom line is, the Gov't is spending too much money and, as Durbin says, it's not sustainable. For the Gov't to "live within it's means," it will have to both increase revenue and cut spending, which will likely be benefits as well as military expenditures. The reason no one in Gov't has talked about this before is because such moves will be unpopular, but I think we've reached a point of no return where the ugly choices are necessary. No one department will be able to take all the cuts - not military, not SS/Medicare, not Congress, and not even illegals. ALL departments will have to cut their budgets, and yes taxes WILL have to go up to make up the difference. Doing everything across the board is the only fair thing to do, since everyone contributes to the current problem in some way. We're all just going to have to learn to deal on this.

WGN: Bush-Cheney started the the budget fiasco....
Be real, this fiasco has been building for decades.

It's heartening to see some progress being made toward reducing the deficit, as cooler heads seem to be prevailing, at least in the US senate. Unfortunately I don't expect the House to follow suit. Whether it's Pelosi or Boehner as speaker, reps will pander to their narrow interests, refuse to compromise their extreme partisan dogma, and fail once again to pass any meaningful reform. Repubs will blame democrats, democrats will blame repubs, and the sorry state of our economy will remain stagnant.

 We all come here, ranting and raving about Dems, Repubs...knowing full well that ALL politicans are owned by special interest, be it corporations, unions, lobbyists. We all know that regardless of who is in the White House, who is majority in Congress...policitans will do whatever their owners want them to do and it is not in the best interest of America or Americans. We all know this...yet we continue to rant and rave, finger pointing, etc...we all know it will not change.

Cut your damn spending. There would be no reason to raise taxes on US - if it were not for their financial mistakes.

Start at the top. CUT, CUT, CUT.

The single largest segment of the federal budget is defense spending. It has sored from $300 billion in 2000 to between $1.03 and $1.2 trillion annually. This number eclipses the amount spent on Social Security. Social Security, the federal government program employees and their employers have paid into for decades is under assult while the standing military's save for the Navy and Marine Corps are unconstitutional according to Article 1: Section 8: Clauses 12 and 13.

Congress must begin to ahere to the intent of the framers in the Constitution and disband the Army, The Air Force, The National Guard and the Coast Guard immeditely. This action will reduce national spending on defense down to $179 billion per year, an annual savings in federal spending of between $800 billion and $1 trillion. Given that the annual federal deficit this year eclipsed $1.5 trillion other cuts would be easy to make.

With the Navy consigned to patrolling our shores and the Marines on-board the ships as the founding fathers envisioned, no foreign navy will be able to send landing craft loaded with troops to land on our beaches. If they are able to get by our Navy and Marines, then the tens of millions of members of the militia will meet them on the beach with their 2nd amendment weapons and terminate them where they stand.

Once again Nero (congress) fiddles while Rome (America) burns. History repeats itself ad nauseum. Where is that Alien Life NASA announced is it possible they might be smarter than lil ole you and me?