This is Not George Bush’s Budget
Mike Madden | Salon: “Elections have consequences” is one of those political clichés that gets thrown around a lot in this city, especially in the first few months of a new administration. But President Obama’s $3.5 trillion budget proposal, released Thursday, actually reminds you that clichés become clichés for a reason: They’re true.
The 142-page proposal laid out a sweeping, ambitious agenda for the future: Obama would raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for healthcare for the uninsured; cap pollution emissions; put billions more dollars into infrastructure and new technology, building on the money in the massive economic stimulus program Obama already pushed through Congress; invest in new education programs; and roll back the U.S. troop presence in Iraq and, more slowly, Afghanistan.
There were proposals to save money by modernizing the healthcare system, only paying for treatments that are proven to work, and by eliminating federal farm subsidies to the biggest and wealthiest recipients, mostly agribusiness interests. This is not, in other words, George W. Bush’s budget.
