Obama's first budget plan forecasts $1.75 trillion deficit

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-02-27 08:04

WASHINGTON – US President Barack Obama laid out his first budget plan Thursday predicting a stunning federal deficit of $1.75 trillion this year -- nearly four times last year's record -- and asking Congress to raise taxes on the wealthy to stem that flood of red ink while still moving the country toward guaranteed health care for all.

US President Barack Obama speaks about his fiscal 2010 federal budget, Thursday, February 26, 2009, in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus in Washington, Thursday, February 26, 2009. Vice President Joe Biden is at left, and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is at center. [Agencies]

Denouncing what he called the "dishonest accounting" of recent federal budgets, Obama unveiled his own $3.6 trillion blueprint for next year, a bold proposal that would transfer wealth from rich taxpayers to the middle class and the poor.

Congressional approval without major change is anything but sure. The plan is filled with political land mines including an initiative to combat global warming that would hit consumers with considerably higher utility bills. Other proposals would take on entrenched interests such as big farming, insurance companies and drug makers.

Obama blamed the expected federal deficit explosion on a "deep and destructive" recession and recent efforts to battle it including the Wall Street bailout and the just-passed $787 billion stimulus plan. The $1.75 trillion deficit estimate for this year is $250 billion more than projected just days ago because of proposed new spending for a fresh bailout for banks and other financial institutions.

As the nation digs out of the most serious economic crisis in decades, Obama said, "We will, each and every one of us, have to compromise on certain things we care about but which we simply cannot afford right now."

Signaling budget battles to come, Republicans were skeptical Obama was doing without much at all.

"We can't tax and spend our way to prosperity," said House GOP leader John Boehner of Ohio. "The era of big government is back, and Democrats are asking you to pay for it."

Obama plans to move aggressively toward rebalancing the tax system, extending a $400 tax credit for most workers -- $800 for couples -- while letting expire President George W. Bush's tax cuts for couples making more than $250,000 a year.

Thursday's 134-page budget submission, a nonbinding recommendation to Congress, says the plan would close the deficit to a more reasonable -- but still eye-popping -- $533 billion after five years. That would still be higher than last year's record $455 billion deficit.

And the national debt would more than double by the end of the upcoming decade, raising worries that so much federal borrowing could drive up interest rates and erode the value of the dollar.

Also, to narrow the budget gap, Obama relies on rosier predictions of economic growth -- including a 3.2 percent boost in the economy next year -- than most private sector economists foresee.

There is already resistance from Democrats who are upset with the budget's plan to curb the ability of wealthier people to reduce their tax bills through deductions for mortgage interest, charitable contributions and state and local taxes.

That tax hike would raise $318 billion over the upcoming decade toward a down payment on Obama's high-priority universal health care plan. Cuts to the Medicare and Medicaid federal health programs would supply an additional $316 billion, but that still wouldn't provide enough money to guarantee coverage for all, and Obama wants Congress to come up with hundreds of billions of dollars in additional hard-to-raise revenues to pay for the rest.

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