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Obama Unveils $3-Trillion Budget Plan

By VOA News
26 February 2009

U.S. President Barack Obama says his first budget proposal, which projects spending of more than $3 trillion dollars, seeks to address the country's most immediate needs.

Mr. Obama is forecasting a $1.75 trillion deficit for 2009 in the proposal, which is being sent to Congress Thursday.

The president, at an event at the White House complex, said Thursday his plan makes clear how much is being spent for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by including the funding in the budget for the first time.

Mr. Obama said he inherited $1 trillion deficit from his predecessor, former President George Bush, and that the current government must first focus on what is needed to move the country forward.

Mr. Obama's 2010 budget outline includes an additional $250 billion to boost the teetering U.S. financial system, which has already received more than $700 billion since late last year. The president also wants a $634 billion fund to reform the U.S. health care system and expand coverage in the system in which more than 40 million Americans are uninsured.

The administration is proposing billions of dollars in new revenue, including raising taxes on Americans making over $250,000 a year, and allowing the tax cuts pushed by former President Bush to expire in 2010.

Mr. Obama is also projecting raising billions of dollars through a cap-and-trade system aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions. The program would collect money from businesses who buy permits to discharge certain amounts of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere

Mr. Obama also wants to save money by cutting subsidies to wealthy farmers and agriculture-based businesses. He also wants to cut the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from $130 billion in 2010, to $50 billion annually over the next several years.

The projected deficit for 2009 would represent over 12 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product - the largest amount since the end of World War II.

The president has said he intends to cut the U.S. government's budget deficit in half in four years, despite the need for large amounts of new spending in attempts to reverse the country's economic decline. Mr. Obama signed a $787 billion economic stimulus bill into law last week.

In his address to Congress Tuesday, the president pledged to invest in energy, health care, and education, areas he said are critical to the nation's economic future.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.