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Budget Reax
ByThe document is here (pdf). Marc Ambinder:
The budget projects that the national debt will increase nearly two-fold over 10 years, from $8.3 trillion in 2009 to $15.3 trillion in 2019. So why does the deficit go up? Largely, it's because the baby boom generation is retiring and taking Social Security checks. Social Security spending rises fairly dramatically over the next ten years.
Tell it to Nancy. Chris Mooney:
The Obama administration has made an ingenious move: Its soon to be revealed budget relies, for revenue, upon the idea that Congress will pass cap and trade legislation, and this will be bringing big money into the government by 2012. Moreover, the budget commits that money to achieving core administration policy objectives...So now, if you oppose the coming cap and trade bill, you're also messing with the president's attempt to cut the deficit, invest in renewable energy, and give money back to taxpayers. How's that for smart politics?
If I feel out-maneuvered by Obama in this, it's because I have been. I've become a cap-and-trade skeptic, but I'm also deeply concerned about the deficit. But it's not as if I didn't see it coming, in a way. Robert Reich:
President Obama’s new budget is, well, audacious -- not just because it includes several big, audacious initiatives (universally affordable health care, and a cap-and-trade system for coping with global warming, for starters) but also because it represents the biggest redistribution of income from the wealthy to the middle class and poor this nation has seen in more than forty years.
The budget (page 114) projects 5.5% GDP growth in 2011 and 6.2% GDP growth in both 2012 and 2013. Obama has been accused of being too gloomy in his discussions of the economy, but that's some serious optimism at work.
According to McClatchy, Obama may target the air force's F-22 fighter planea program Frank had mentioned as particularly wastefulfor cuts. (Defense Secretary Robert Gates has also criticized the program.) But even if the F-22 program is slashed, or even halted altogether, the military budget is still going up. That's a far cry from what Frank and other Congressional Dems called for on Tuesday. Will they make a fuss?
The White House expects U.S. unemployment to peak at 8.1 percent this year (it stands now at 7.6 percent) and drop to 7.9 percent in 2010, according to budget bits coming out now.
The $2 trillion in savings touted by the President is a hollow number based on tax increases and reduced war funding. Where is the spending restraint? Instead, government spending continues to grow and expand, while the economy continues to suffer.
....the question some Dems on the Hill are asking is this. Now that we’re seeing the outlines of Obama’s budget, which sets up major looming fights with the opposition over health care and many other items, will we see the White House sporting a meaner operation this time around? Is the White House determined to learn from their [stimulus] missteps, such as they were, and gear up the right message faster?
