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Politico...
Hard choices: Obama’s
2012 budget
By: David Rogers
February 14, 2011
Long on tough choices, short on final answers, President Barack Obama‘s
new 2012 budget goes to Congress on Monday in what many hope is only an
opening bid before he and Republicans come to the table on a bipartisan
deficit reduction plan.
For the current year, the White House projects a better-than-$1.6
trillion deficit — even higher than the Congressional Budget Office.
But outlays would actually drop in 2012 and stabilize in the $3.7
trillion range as deficits fall to $1.1 trillion in 2012 and then $768
billion in 2013.
After November’s election results, no one assumes this is sufficient,
but more than any of Obama’s prior efforts, this budget makes choices
that help define the man himself.
He bets big on education spending — an 11 percent increase next year —
while altering the Pell Grant program to try to save the aid levels now
allowed for college students from the poorest families. The National
Institutes of Health would grow by about $1 billion, even as old
anti-poverty programs and heating assistance would be cut. And $62
billion in Medicare savings would be plowed back into paying physicians
who care for the elderly.
Foreign wars, particularly the one in Afghanistan, would drain Obama of
$118 billion, but for the first time in many years, total expenditures
for the Pentagon and military would begin to fall. And while
Republicans ridicule his five-year cap on domestic spending, it has
bred new restraint in him.
Last year at this time, the president wanted $1.85 billion for two of
his public school reform initiatives. Now, the request is $1.2 billion
— one-third less. Transportation would remain a priority, but he’s also
proposing an ambitious consolidation of programs to discipline future
spending under a single trust fund covering highways and passenger rail
systems like Amtrak.
The numbers read less like a budget than a soldier deciding what he
must carry and what will weigh him down too much when he jumps into a
hot landing zone.
And that’s very much where Obama is: jumping into a Congress that is
its own hot LZ, where House Republicans and their tea party allies are
already tearing up his 2011 budget, let alone his new ideas for the
year ahead.
Indeed, nothing in modern federal budgeting matches the situation today.
Almost halfway through this fiscal year, the entire government is
operating under a temporary resolution due to expire March 4, and the
Treasury expects its borrowing authority to be exhausted within three
months later. House Republicans are proposing $60 billion in immediate
cuts from the continuing resolution (CR) now funding the government.
And fast on the heels of the president’s budget, Senate Democrats must
begin deciding Tuesday how much more they want to cut this year in
response to the House’s moves.
Trying to stem the tide, the president says his budget already includes
$1.1 trillion in 10-year deficit reductions, two-thirds of which would
come from domestic spending. But that figure pales in comparison to the
recommendations from his bipartisan fiscal commission in December, and
like Alice’s Red Queen, Obama often seems to be running hard just to
say in place.
His $62 billion from Medicare is a 10 year savings estimate that will
only pay the bill for physician reimbursements for two years. He
protects middle-class families from the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT)
for three years by taxing the rich more for 10. And his $100 billion
“savings” from restructuring Pell Grants appears inflated since the
whole program would likely collapse otherwise given the untenable
costs.
Republicans began agitating for the CR fight now immediately after
their victories in November but insist they don’t want a government
shutdown and will extend the March 4 deadline as needed.
Yet, what began as a spending fight has evolved into more of a raw
power play...
Read the full story at Politico
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