The fight begins: Obama's budget going to Congress

[Omaha Steve]

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20120213/D9SS6C6O2.html

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER

WASHINGTON (AP) - The new budget that President Barack Obama is sending to Congress aims to achieve $4 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade by restraining government spending and raising taxes on the wealthy. To help a weak economy, Obama's proposal Monday requests increases in transportation, education and other areas.

While administration officials on Sunday defended the plan as a balanced approach, Republicans belittled the effort as a repeat of failed policies that did too little to attack soaring costs in such programs as Medicare and threatened growth by raising taxes.

The debate is almost certain to go all the way to Election Day in November with gridlock keeping Congress from resolving many pressing issues on expiring tax cuts and across-the-board spending cuts until a lame-duck session at year's end.

Obama's spending blueprint for the budget year that begins Oct. 1 projects a deficit for this year of $1.33 trillion. That would mean four straight years of trillion-dollar-plus deficits.

FULL story at link.

[DCKit]

1. It's become pretty damn obvious that the only way to get the 1% to invest in the economy...

is to tax them.

[sofa king]

2. I don't miss Blue Book season at all.

Back in the olden days I lined up at half a dozen federal offices for the paper copies of the parts of the budget I needed, and I remember returning to my office one year to discover I had beat my 33.6 modem, which spent all day trying to download the electronic version from hammered government servers.

Then hours and hours of flagging, analyzing, calculating, summarizing.... The damned paper following me into bed and crackling in my ears as I tried to sleep... waking up to a chartreuse face and pillow because I'd left the cap off the highlighter... missed calls and pissed off girlfriends.

But, I'd do it all again given half the chance! It's so much easier now. And no highlighters.