Call for enduring pain in the coming days

President Barack Obama in his much vaunted policy speech on America's financial woes this week proposed a $4.0 trillion federal budget deficit cut over next 12 years, in contrast to Republican proposal of $4.4 trillion budget deficit cut over next ten years. President asked the people to mentally prepare themselves to endure pain in the coming days. The pain will be evenly distributed but our grandchildren will remember us, President Obama said in his speech. He warned that Republican proposal would lead to a fundamentally different America that we have known. America cannot get rid of mounting federal budget deficit without raising taxes. The United States owes too much money. Obama has proposed new tax amounting to $1.0 trillion over next 12 years with load falling on wealthy Americans. In the face of Republican plans to shrink the size of the government, cut entitlement spending and tax reductions for wealthy Americans, Obama stuck to his goal. The White House said its budget proposal would bring down the federal budget deficit by 2.5 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) by 2015. President Obama and Republicans are poised for another battle over raising the federal budget deficit limit by $14,300 billion to avoid a default. The White House is trying to enlist the support of the Wall Street in its debate over increasing the debt ceilin saying US default would be catastrophic for markets. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is heading the group. Barack Obama's speech on America's financial woes was seen as his first election salvo and it was directly addressed to independent voters. He admitted that America's debt burden has grown large and if the debt is not contained, it would be difficult to set the house in order. Pentagon in its reaction to Obama's speech said the cut in defence spending could force the US military to rein in its role across the world. Defence cut would ould reduce military's capability, defence secretary Robert Gates said. There has been no mention about cut in the allocation for the State Department.