Obama unveiled the budget at Parkville Middle School and Center of Technology in Baltimore. See the budget, department by department, here. This budget is just a starting point. Dems will want to add things and republicans will want to take things away:
President Barack Obama released a $3.73 trillion budget for fiscal-year 2012 Monday where he sought to balance two competing and conflicting agendas: dramatic cuts to federal spending while also investing in programs to improve U.S. competitiveness.
He ended up with a product that offers up more than $1 trillion in deficit reductions over a 10-year period—three-quarters coming from spending cuts and the balance from tax increases or the elimination of existing tax breaks.
In fiscal 2012 alone, the administration proposed reducing or closing 200 federal programs at a savings of $33 billion. WSJ
But those proposed savings go nowhere near the short-term reductions that House Republicans are pushing for. Friday night, the party's leaders released details of a plan to slash $62 billion in the remaining 7½ months of fiscal 2011, and they promised to cut more in their fiscal 2012 budget plan.
The Obama budget reductions don't come close to the $4 trillion in savings recommended by a White House-appointed deficit commission. This is largely because the president's budget shies away from pushing for any substantial changes to entitlement programs Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security. Nor does it include a specific outline for overhauling either the corporate or individual tax codes. WSJ
White House budget director Jack Lew spoke this morning on the budget.
