Obama Readies $3.8T Budget With Record $1.6T Deficit

Record shortfall in current fiscal year would shrink to $1.3T in 2011
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Jan 31, 2010 4:41 PM CST
Obama Readies $3.8T Budget With Record $1.6T Deficit
President Obama delivers his first State of the Union address on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 27, 2010. Vice President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are seen in the background.    (TIM SLOAN)

President Obama's proposed budget predicts the national deficit will crest at a record-breaking $1.6 trillion in the current fiscal year, then start to recede in 2011 to $1.3 trillion, a congressional official said today. The new budget, out tomorrow, says deficits over the next decade will average 4.5% of the size of the economy, a level economists say is dangerously high if not addressed, said the official, who was not authorized to discuss the budget before its public release.

The proposed $3.8 trillion budget would provide billions more to pull the country out of the Great Recession while increasing taxes on the wealthy and imposing a spending freeze on many government programs. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the administration considered "somewhere in the $100 billion range" the appropriate amount for a new jobs measure. That price tag would undercut a $174 billion bill passed by the House in December but top an $83 billion proposal that surfaced last week in the Senate.
(More President Obama stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X