I don't understand how he is trying to stimulate the economy and decrease the account deficit at the same.
This might be difficult for you to comprehend, but taxes are not going up until the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of 2010. The logic behind rolling them back to the rates of the Clinton era in 2011 ( which I might add was the longest peace-time economic expansion in our nation's history ), is that we will hopefully be out of our Recession by then. Duh.
The semantics of that "major point", as you say, may be correct, assuming the recession is still on in 2011, however it certainly is misleading, because in reality President Obama's 2010 budget calls for over a trillion dollars of net income tax reductions There is no net increase being called for in 2010, and the net decreases are expected to carry over into 2011. Another point of the article, which is full of misguided opinions and short on facts, is this: " he's proposed [for social security] additional taxes on earnings above the current payroll tax cap of $106,800 -- a bad policy that would raise marginal tax rates still further and barely dent the long-run deficit. Well that's certainly debatable! It is likely that a majority of US citizens believe this is the best way to make Social Security financially sound. It is not a radical idea in the least. For any one to suggest that social security contributions are no different from say taxes that pay for general government operation is highly misleading. Your contributions, and mine, to Social Security, are returned to you later in the form of a defined benefit retirement plan that you can not outlive. Contrast that to a typical 401K plan, if you will. Because of its shared risk feature S.S. requires lower contribution rate for the same benefit in perpetuity that a 401K plan would. Social Security is in reality a very efficient, well run government program, that gives the lie to those who falsely believe that government can't do anything well. Sorry to have to say it, but the article you quote is just another WSJ opinion piece full of Wall Street drivel. It's the kind of thinking that got us into the current mess.