Courtesy Greenbaby President Barack Obama unveiled a multi-trillion-dollar spending plan Thursday that would boost taxes on the wealthy, curtail Medicare, lay the groundwork for universal health care and leave a string of deficits dwarfing any in the nation’s history.
In addition to sending Congress his $3.55 trillion budget plan for 2010, Obama proposed more immediate changes that would push spending to $3.94 trillion in the current year.
That would result in a record deficit Obama projects will hit $1.75 trillion, reflecting the massive spending being undertaken to battle a severe recession and the worst financial crisis in seven decades.
But Republicans contended Obama was avoiding hard choices in favor of exploding the deficit and raising taxes.
Christina Romer, head of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, defended the administration forecast, telling reporters at a briefing that the private forecasters may not be taking into account all of the efforts the government is employing to jump-start the economy.
The Medicare plan is sure to incite battles with doctors, hospitals, health insurance companies and drug manufacturers.
The $1.75 trillion deficit projected for this year would represent 12.3 percent of the gross domestic product, double the previous post-war record of 6 percent in 1983, when Ronald Reagan was president, and the highest level since the deficit totaled 21.5 percent of GDP in 1945, at the end of World War II.
In for a penny, in for a pound. Where’s my bailout?
