WASHINGTON — Here are some highlights of the $3.55 trillion fiscal 2010 budget that President Barack Obama proposed on Thursday. It:
_ projects a total deficit for the current fiscal year, 2009, of $1.75 trillion — 12.3 percent of the gross domestic product. The previous post-World War II record deficit was 6 percent of GDP in fiscal 1983, considered dangerously high at the time.
_ projects annual deficits falling to 8 percent of GDP in 2010 and to 3 percent by 2013, a level it would roughly maintain through 2019.
_ would raise taxes on households making more than $250,000 a year by $955 billion over 10 years.
_ would create a cap-and-trade auction program to tax carbon emissions and reduce greenhouse gases that would raise $645.7 billion over 8 years. It would spend $120 billion of that on clean energy technologies and the rest to fund tax cuts for households making less than $140,000 a year.
_ would set aside a $634 billion reserve fund over 10 years to begin financing a national health-care program. It would pay for that fund by reducing Medicare "overpayments" to private insurers; reducing Medicaid drug rebates to manufacturers; and reducing the tax break for deductions taken by households with annual income over $250,000.
_ lists a $250 billion reserve fund as a placeholder estimate to support $750 billion in new spending to rescue banks. This would be in addition to the $700 billion bank-rescue fund that was approved last fall.
_ would make permanent the $400 per person, $800 per family "Making Work Pay" tax credit included in the recent $787 billion stimulus program. Would fund these cuts from the carbon tax revenue.
_ lays the groundwork to create a future system of automatic workplace pensions in addition to Social Security. Employers would be required to enroll employees in a direct-deposit IRA.
_ would expand many spending programs in the recent stimulus plan that aim to conserve energy and modernize the electricity grid.
_ would expand many spending programs on education that were included in the recent stimulus plan.
_ calls for Congress to overhaul student-loan programs to make them more efficient and expand available loan funds.
_ would make permanent the $2,500 tax credit for college education that's contained in the stimulus plan.
_ would phase out direct subsidies to farmers who make more than $500,000 a year.
_ would spend $75.5 billion for the rest of fiscal 2009 and $130 billion for fiscal 2010 on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
_ would increase the Army's manpower to 547,500 soldiers and the Marines' to 202,000 by the end of fiscal 2010.
_ would give a 2.9 percent pay raise to all uniformed men and women in the military and a 2 percent raise for all other federal employees.
_ would increase spending on the Defense Department by $20.4 billion, or 4 percent.
_ would increase spending for the Veterans Administration by $25 billion over five years.
_ aims to eventually double spending on foreign aid to $50 billion and to expand the Foreign Service year by year.
_ would boost spending on the Securities and Exchange Commission by 13 percent and on the Commodities Futures Trading Commission by 44 percent over 2008 levels, to increase the regulation of financial markets.
_ aims to save $48.5 billion over 10 years by rigorously improving the oversight of federal spending programs to eliminate waste and fraud.
_ would create a $1 billion a year high-speed rail state grant program in addition to the $8 billion program created in the $787 billion stimulus plan. States sharing the goal of creating new high-speed rail lines include California, Washington, Texas, Mississippi, Florida, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.
ON THE WEB
White House Office of Management and Budget
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