Obama budget 2010: healthcare reform reserve fund; $1.75 trillion deficit; e-Verify; blames GOP, Wall Street

You can download a PDF containing Barack Obama's 2010 budget from here. John Boehner responds here, raising issues with taxing during a recession, the size of the deficit, and increasing the size of the federal government.

1. The budget puts us on the path to healthcare "reform":

The Budget establishes a reserve fund of more than $630 billion over 10 years to finance fundamental reform of our health care system that will bring down costs and expand coverage. The reserve is funded half by new revenue and half by savings proposals that promote efficiency and accountability, align incentives toward quality, and encourage shared responsibility. In addition, the Budget calls for an effort beyond this down payment, to put the Nation on a path to health insurance coverage for all Americans. However, additional funding will be needed. This effort must be open, and must consider all kinds of approaches as part of this process. Some major strides have already been made in the American recovery and reinvestment Act of 2009, including $19 billion for health information technology, $1 billion for comparative effectiveness research, and subsidies for the newly unemployed to maintain their health insurance. These initiatives put the Nation on the path toward fundamental health reform.

See this for more on that.

2. From this:

The administration estimates that the deficit for fiscal year 2009 will reach $1.75 trillion, or 12.3% of U.S. gross domestic product. That's a record in dollar terms and is the highest as a share of GDP since World War II.

3. Ibid:

Obama's outline also reveals how much more money he and his economic team are setting aside to stabilize the financial system. Their estimate: $250 billion. That would be on top of the $700 billion already authorized by Congress under the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

In the budget, that's called "Create placeholder for potential additional financial stabilization effort".

4. It includes $110 million "to continue expansion of" the EVerify program.

5. Funding to expand the HOPE for Homeowners program (link): 225 million in 2009, 1.375 billion in 2010, and 900 million in 2011, after which it will supposedly stop.

Comments

I think we should give him enough time for him to settle down.. regards Robert BGI (http://bgiworldwide.com)