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The take from the rich and give to the poor legacy of Robin Hood has found many followers. Obama’s budget proposal is being seen in this new light as he presented a people friendly populist budget. As the 2012 Presidential election campaigns heats up, both the prime candidates, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are leaving no avenue unexplored to gain leverage amongst the people – the budget proposal is one such avenue that Obama has used to his advantage.
The proposed budget of 2013, is being seen as a populist budget and has given Obama just that slender lead that could lead to his re-election in 2012. Coming in the wake of Romney’s alleged statement “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs a repair, I’ll fix it.” Obama has certainly tilted the popularity scales in his favor by his retort “We can restore an economy where everybody gets a fair shot, everybody does their fair share, everybody plays by the same set of rules — from Washington to Wall Street to Main Street. That’s the America we believe in.”
The two proposals that appeal to the general public, for whom budgetary words such as deficits, economic downturn, federal coffers are beyond grasp, are his suggestion for higher taxes for people in the higher income bracket, which means an additional $ 968 that could be used elsewhere for health and education, and infrastructure maintenance and other welfare programs.
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That he plans to spend $487 billion less on defense and that the Pentagon will pull out two of its four brigades from permanent bases in Europe to save money, has also gone down well with the American people. Moreover, the message that America will save nearly $ 1 trillion from winding down wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, has met with strong nods of approval, as most people want that America should stop being a cop to the world and should now look to assuage the myriad problems of its own.
It is worth recollecting that Obama’s predecessor George Bush, from whom he inherited two unpopular wars and consequentially huge expenses, was primarily responsible for giving tax sops to the super rich – Obama has made it clear that these tax cuts must go. Something very few presidential aspirants dared to do. Even though it will mean that the super-rich will not dig into their pockets for him in the next elections, it certainly will raise, not only the government’s coffers but also his esteem amongst the working class and middle class families. Not to forget that whilst doing away with the Bush sops, he has also raised taxes on top earners in numerous other ways and advised tax breaks for lower- and middle-class families and small businesses.
In his last budget President Obama was accused of caring little for the poor and the working class in the United States and that his budget would make the lives of millions more difficult – with this new budget he has erased all that and shown that he has a vision for the United States and that not only does he want to see economic growth, he also wants to improve the quality of life and well being of everyone and that he is willing to take tough decisions – Robin Hood it seems has shifted base from Nottingham to Washington.
