As the fiscal year is closely coming to an end, the United States is looking at the largest annual deficits in history. How will it change in the time to come is in question and the Congressional Budget Office and the White House Office of Management and Budgets are expected to put out 10-year deficit figures along with their economic expectations.

It’s a swing and a miss for the White Houses as estimates for unemployment, which were at an estimated 8.1% this year, had already sunk its way to 9.4% in July. This past week the White House threw out a projected $9 trillion for the new 10-year deficit predictions, staying consistent with the CBO’s former estimate.

A worry one may ponder is the route foreign government and investors will take and the possibility of challenging higher interest rates or ceasing to buy US debt. Domestically, there is a need for a strategic exit putting pressure on President Obama, highlighting the challenges ahead.

Time and again President Obama had reiterated the statement that most American families will not see a raise in their taxes, yet there has yet to be something said for the hastily increasing national debt.

Although the White House, on the contrary has not been mute on the matter and various propositions have been proposed. These propositions include a pay-as-you-go plan, which holds Congress responsible to pay for any new tax cuts or increases on spending. A $17 billion spending cuts have been wished-for as well.

The controversial health care reform initiative President Obama has been backing is another alternative that has the potential to tame the US’s wild deficit.

By Anne Flaherty, Associated Press Writer
On Wednesday July 29, 2009, 2:30 pm EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) — A senior House Democrat threatened banks Wednesday that if they don’t volunteer to save more homeowners from foreclosure, Congress will make them.

In a sternly worded statement, Rep. Barney Frank said Congress will revive legislation that would let bankruptcy judges write down a person’s monthly mortgage payment if the number of loan modifications remain low.

Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, also said his committee won’t consider legislation to help banks lend unless there is a “significant increase” in mortgage modifications.

Frank’s statement was aimed at adding momentum to a deal struck Tuesday between Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and more than two dozen mortgage companies. The two sides agreed to set the goal of adjusting 500,000 loans by Nov. 1.

But it was far from clear whether that would happen.

Loan servicers say they are still trying to play catch up to a deluge of customer requests by hiring and training thousands of new employees. Banks also are trying to sort through which customers face a legitimate financial hardship.

Also, many loans have been bundled and sold to investors as securities, complicating efforts to modify the terms.

Congress tried earlier this spring to pass legislation that would give people a chance to keep their homes by filing for bankruptcy. But while President Barack Obama said he supported the measure, he did little to see it through and it was defeated amid an aggressive lobbying effort by banks.

The measure failed in the Senate by a 45-51 vote, falling 15 votes short of the 60 needed to overcome procedural hurdles.

“People in the servicing industry and in the broader financial industry must understand that if this last effort to produce significant modifications fails, the argument for reviving the bankruptcy option will be extremely strong, and I think there is a substantial chance that the outcome will be different,” Frank said.

A group of fiscally conservative House Democrats announced Wednesday they reached a deal with the chamber’s Democratic leaders on a health care reform bill.

Rep. Mike Ross of Arkansas, speaking for the so-called Blue Dog Democrats, said the agreement calls for the House Energy and Commerce Committee to begin debating the bill later Wednesday, but for no vote by the full House until after the upcoming August congressional recess.

Ross and the Blue Dogs had threatened to derail the bill in the Energy and Commerce Committee due to concerns that it cost too much and failed to address systemic problems in the nation’s ailing health care industry.

The Energy and Commerce Committee is one of three House committees that needs to pass the bill before it is voted on by the full chamber. The other two committees have already cleared it.

The deal was announced as President Barack Obama hit the road to build more public support for reform, telling a North Carolina audience that a failure to fix the system now will have catastrophic consequences in the years ahead.

If Congress fails to act soon, he warned a Raleigh town hall audience, health costs will double over the next decade, make millions more Americans uninsured, and bankrupt government on both the state and federal level.

The president accused his critics of mischaracterizing his plan as a government takeover of health care.

“No one is talking about some government takeover,” he said. “I’m tired of hearing that. … These folks need to stop scaring everybody.”

He also brushed aside criticism that the plan is being rushed through Congress without adequate time for review and debate.

Congressmen will have plenty of time to read the bill, Obama insisted. Noting that Congress won’t finish deliberating the legislation until after its August recess, Obama said he’d be willing to invite any representative or senator over to the White House to review the bill “line by line.”

The president is slated to make a similar health care pitch later Wednesday to an audience in rural Virginia — a region typically hostile to national Democratic leaders.

Phil Younce, a frozen food clerk at a Kroger supermarket in the town of Bristol, where Obama will speak, told CNN he fears health reform is being rushed, just like the stimulus.

“Like the last package that we pushed through, I think it was too hurried, and a lot of mistakes, a lot of things that shouldn’t be,” said Younce, who voted for Republican candidate John McCain in the presidential election.

But assistant produce manager Cathy Montgomery, who voted for Obama, said she’s excited the president is getting tough with Congress.

“I like the fact that he’s stepped up, and he’s being aggressive, I really do. I mean, I’m all for that,” she said.

Bristol, which is near the Tennessee border, is also where Obama kicked off his general election campaign after defeating Hillary Clinton in the primaries.

Thousands in the area showed up at a health expo offering free medical care over the weekend, exposing a problem all too familiar to doctors in the region.

“Clearly, we all recognize — any physician in the hospital would recognize — that it’s a system in crisis,” said Dr. Bennett Cowan.

But like most employees at the Kroger supermarket, produce manager Steve Shipplett gets generous health benefits.

Even though he voted for Obama, he’s nervous those benefits may be taxed to cover the uninsured. He demanded more specifics from the president.

Obama’s “going to have to spit out some numbers and let the public know exactly what it’s going to cost them and what they’re going to have to give up,” he said.

Shipplett added, however, that if the president successfully steps up and sells his plan, then he’s willing to step up, too.

“We’ve got to do something, and if it means me paying these taxes to get this reform through I would begrudgingly do it, yes,” he said.

Younce said he is ready to do his share, too.

“No matter what kind of plan you are going to come up with, somebody has to pay for it. So eventually, it comes down to us — the people that’s working and paying taxes. We’re going to have to pay for it one way or another. I just hope we can come up with a plan that is worth paying for,” he said.

– CNN’s Dana Bash and Ed Henry contributed to this report.

By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Associated Press Writer
On Wednesday July 15, 2009, 3:01 pm EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Praising and prodding Congress, President Barack Obama on Wednesday said a vast reform of the nation’s health insurance system is required to head off instability to families, industry and the government itself.

“Deferring reform is nothing more than defending the status quo — and those who would oppose our efforts should take a hard look at just what it is they’re defending,” Obama said in the Rose Garden, pushing for landmark bills to get through the House and Senate before Congress’ August recess.

Putting more of his own political stake behind the effort each day, Obama outlined the troubles with the U.S. approach to health care coverage, with an emphasis on the cost to consumers. He spoke of soaring premiums, deductibles and out-of-pocket costs and promised with reform, “You’ll save money.”

“If you lose your job, change your job or start a new business, you’ll still be able to find quality health insurance that you can afford,” Obama promised. Once again assuring Americans who are dubious of what might be changing, he said those happy with their doctor and health care plan will be able to keep it.

To make his point, Obama surrounded himself with nurses and proclaimed that they’re “on board” with reform.

Any proposed health care package still must clear the complexities and politics of getting through the House and Senate, with Obama’s ambitious goals of slowing cost increases and bringing coverage to nearly 50 million uninsured. How to pay for it all remains one of the most vexing parts of the debate.

The Senate health committee cast a milestone vote Wednesday to approve legislation expanding insurance coverage to nearly all Americans, becoming the first congressional panel to act on Obama’s top domestic priority.

A day earlier, House Democratic leaders pledged to meet the president’s goal of health care legislation before their August break, offering a $1.5 trillion plan that for the first time would make health care a right and a responsibility for all Americans. Left to pick up most of the tab were medical providers, employers and the wealthy.

“This progress should make us hopeful, but it can’t make us complacent,” Obama said. “It should instead provide the urgency for both the House and the Senate to finish their critical work on health reform before the August recess.”

Indeed, Obama’s brief comments amounted to a presidential pep talk. “It’s time for us to buck up Congress, this administration, the entire federal government to be clear that we’ve got to get this done.”

In the Senate, the health committee’s 13-10 party line vote advanced a $600 billion measure that would require individuals to get health insurance and employers to contribute to the cost.

The health committee bill calls for the government to provide financial assistance with premiums for individuals and families making up to four times the federal poverty level, or about $88,000 for a family of four, a broad cross-section of the middle class. The legislation is but one piece of a broader Senate bill still under development.

“This time we’ve produced legislation that by and large I think the American people want,” said Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., who stood in for the committee chairman, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass. Kennedy, who’s made health care legislation a lifelong priority, is being treated for brain cancer.

But ranking Republican Sen. Mike Enzi of Wyoming argued that the bill would break Obama’s promises by adding to the deficit.

Obama quickly issued a statement of praise, and then he took to the Rose Garden. It marked the third straight day the president has kept up a full-court press on health care. The drive included a television ad blitz by Obama’s political operation, targeting moderate lawmakers of both parties.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he wanted floor debate to begin a week from Monday. With the Senate Finance Committee still struggling to reach consensus, however, that timetable could slip.

Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., met Wednesday with committee Democrats to try to settle how to pay for the bill and other issues.

“We’re just not quite there,” Baucus said after the meeting. Obama has pushed Baucus to have a bill ready by week’s end, but Baucus declined to say whether he’d made a timetable commitment to the president.

“I’m just pushing as hard as I can,” said Baucus, who’s aiming for a bipartisan deal. “I’m very sympathetic to the desire to get this … as soon as possible and that’s my goal.”

Obama’s political organization is launching a series of 30-second television ads on health care, which will begin airing Wednesday in Washington and on cable TV nationally. A version will run on local stations in eight states — Arkansas, Indiana, Florida, Louisiana, Maine, North Dakota, Nebraska and Ohio — to prod senators to back the health care effort. They will run for two weeks.

In the ads, private citizens describe problems they’ve had with the medical system and say it’s time for action. The sponsor is Organizing for America, Obama’s campaign organization, which has become part of the national Democratic Party. The group would not reveal the cost.

The Republican National Committee was answering back.

In a fundraising appeal titled “Hillarycare revisited,” the RNC warned about “Obamacare” and said the government “already runs car companies, banks and mortgage companies. Republicans believe that the last thing the American people want is government telling them when and where — or even whether — they can get medical treatment for their families.”

Associated Press reporters David Espo, Ben Feller, Alan Fram and Erica Werner contributed to this report.