Obama to lay out deficit plans
US President Barack Obama will Wednesday seek to wrest control of Washington's fevered debate over the economy and bulging deficit, sure to be a dominant theme of his 2012 reelection bid.
The White House says the president will lay out his vision for constraining the fiscal gap, as fresh political battles over spending escalate less than a week after the dramatic climax to a 2011 budget fight.
Advance details of Obama's speech are at the capital's George Washington University are sketchy. But aides hint at some reform of costly health programs like Medicare for the elderly, tax hikes for the wealthy and a trimming of the trillions spent on the military -- all recipes for pitched political conflict.
Cuts will be with a "scalpel and not a machete," they say, seeking to safeguard Obama's core aspirations for education and energy reform, and portraying the slashing approach of conservative Republicans as extreme.
Republicans meanwhile are challenging the president with new boldness, after claiming what many commentators scored as a victory in securing $39 billion in new spending cuts in a last-gasp deal averting a government shutdown last week.
"The buzz continues to build about the president's much anticipated 'budget do-over' speech," said Eric Cantor, the number two Republican in the House of Representatives.
"He will outline his plan to hike taxes on families and business owners in order to get a grasp on our deficit and debt crisis."
Republicans frequently use painful US debt figures -- a projected annual deficit of 1.6 trillion dollars this year and a cumulative public debt of 14.27 trillion dollars as a political weapon.
But Democrats hit back that the last Democratic president Bill Clinton bequeathed budget surpluses to George W. Bush, who they say ran up debt with tax cuts for the rich and wars that were not paid for.
The president's political goals Wednesday seem two-fold: to seek leverage in a short-term row in extending the US debt ceiling; and to define the coming campaign debate over spending.
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