Obama's Budget In A Nutshell
4830721
The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder, CBS News chief political consultant, provides a summary of spending, taxes and miscellanea in the 134 page budget outline from the Obama administration.
Big/Politically interesting items:
1. $4 billion for more Census funding
2. "A new $250 billion TARP 'reserve fund'" – actually, the fund will cost $750 billion in the near term but the White House expects to get $500 billion back from banks
3. Adds money to "build comprehensive, coordinated, high-quality early childhood 'Zero to Five' systems"
4. Lots more money for energy, including billions to modernize the electric grid
5. $6 billion more for cancer research; $1 billion more to improve the FDA's safety and inspection regimes
6. To help people who've defaulted on their mortgage, the budget would pay for $1.3 million more government-subsidized rental properties
7. A la the "One Campaign," it puts the government "on a path" to double its foreign aid budget
8. There's $5 billion for high-speed rail and $800 million for the next generation of air traffic control
9. Increases the EPA budget by 34 percent over fiscal year 2009 levels
10. Increases NASA's budget by $2.4 billion
11. Increases funding for the National Science Foundation by 16 percent over 2008 levels
Other Notes:
The most overused term in the budget is: "reflects the president's commitment"
Policy Costs: In 2010, something called the "baseline projection of current policy deficit" is said to exceed $1.5 trillion dollars. That means, in essence, that changes to fiscal and monetary policy have cost the government an additional $1.5 trillion in total.
In 2011, new tax cuts for individuals are projected to decreases revenues by $12 billion, and by 2012, by $86 billion. To sum them: Mr. Obama wants to create a "Making Work Pay" tax credit ($63 billion over ten years), to expand the earned income tax credit, to expand the refund-ability of the child tax credit, expand saver's credits and provide an American Opportunity Tax Credit.
Business tax cuts amount to much less -- just $3.5 billion by 2012.
Raising taxes: The budget nicely call these "revenue changes" and loophole "closers." As has been reported, the budget assumes the permanent expiration of the Bush tax hikes for the higher income brackets, realizing about $85 billion by the end of his first term.
It also accounts for increases in premiums paid by Medicare recipients earning more than $170,000 per year, and reducing the itemized deduction rate for families with incomes over $250,000 per year.
Mr. Obama also wants to:
1) Reinstate the Superfund tax by 2011
2) Codify an IRS enforcement procedure that will save hundreds of millions of dollars
3) Implement unspecified "international enforcement, reform deferral, and other tax reform policies" to the tune of $210 billion over 10 years.
4) Eliminate the Advanced Earned Income Tax Credit
Bottom line: In total, the budget projects the cost of all the new tax cuts, tax hikes, spending (including $15 billion per year on Green Energy) will exceed $660 billion over 10 years, with a slight majority of that cost realized in Mr. Obama's second term.
Health Care: Mr. Obama provides eight board principles and will leave the details -- for now -- to Congress.
Note: the budget outline uses the word "universality," as in -- "aim for universality" of health care coverage.
Mr. Obama wants a "clear path" to "cover all Americans." The budget outline does not say that Mr. Obama will refuse to sign health care reform that does not immediately cover everyone.
Other principles include portability of coverage, guaranteed issue and the standard package of waste reduction, administrative reforms, wellness investment and patient care concerns.
The administration projects a steep decline in FY 2009 tax revenues. It expects to receive about $972 billion from income taxes and just $180 billion from corporate taxes.
Other tax categories bring in roughly the same amount year-to-year, at least until 2012. In total, the U.S. projects that it will take in about $300 billion dollars less in taxes this year than it did last year.
The number stabilizes in 2010 and exceeds the 2008 level in 2011, owing largely to an increase in individual income taxes and a spike in payroll taxes as people get back to work.
Targeted Cuts: There doesn't appear to be too many. The ultra-deepwater oil and gas research development program is to be cut -- a savings of about $2.5 billion over ten years. Mr. Obama would also cut cut abandoned mine land payments to states and repeal fees associates with the 2005 energy policy act.
You can watch more of Ambinder's analysis of the budget below:
More CBSNews.com Coverage Of The Budget: