By YOUNG MONEY Staff
20 September 2011

President Barack Obama offered the first proposal for reducing the deficit in line with last month's debt ceiling agreement, according to The New York Times.

The president hopes the plan could reduce the deficit by as much as $3 trillion over the next 10 years, and makes use of a variety of cuts as well as increased taxes and other methods of increasing revenue.

The biggest cuts come in healthcare spending, where Medicare would see a $248 billion decrease in funding, while Medicaid would lose $72 billion, though the plan maintains the current age requirements for Medicare.

Another $1.5 trillion would come from tax increases by ending the Bush tax cuts and restricting tax deductions for those above a certain income. While increased taxes have proven contentious in Congress, the president promised to veto any bill that attempted to reduce the deficit without raising new revenue.

The decision has already drawn criticism from Republicans, with The Hill reporting that Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, one of the Republicans' representatives on the super-committee responsible for reducing the deficit, calling it "political posturing."