PASS THE TRIGGER TOMORROW:

'Act boldly now': Obama calls for reducing deficit by $4 trillion (Sam Youngman and Erik Wasson, 04/13/11, The Hill)

The key part of the president’s plan is a “debt fail-safe” trigger that would initiate “across-the-board spending reductions” if by 2014 the projected ratio of debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) “is not stabilized and declining toward the end of the decade,” according to a fact sheet released by the White House in advance of the president’s speech.

The White House said the trigger should ensure that deficits average no more than 2.8 percent of GDP in the second half of this decade. The trigger would not be applied to Social Security payments, Medicare benefits or low-income programs.

Obama said the failsafe "should be an incentive for us to act boldly now, instead of kicking our problems further down the road."

The failsafe is an incentive for the GOP to yield nothing, since it will automatically get what it wants.

Posted by oj at April 13, 2011 6:55 PM
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