http://news.firedoglake.com/2011/02/14/best-parts-of-obama-2012-budget-already-rejected-by-last-congress/I’m reading the Obama 2012 budget, which has finally come online. I will say there are several decent policies in it, but a lot of them represent items that were rejected under a strongly Democratic Congress.
For example, the Administration returns to the Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee as a pay-for. They actually put this out there last January, to have the nation’s largest banks compensate the Treasury for the losses on TARP. The banks said they paid back their TARP money and weren’t responsible for the losses from other financial institutions that received funds, and the whole thing collapsed. That’s back this year, raising $30 billion over ten years.
The budget would eliminate 12 different tax breaks for oil, gas and coal companies, reducing tax expenditures by $46 billion over ten years. This is something Congressional Democrats have been harping on lately, but Republicans have flat rejected it.
On defense, the budget woudl terminate the Marine Corps’ Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, the alternate engine for the Joint Strike Fighter, and the Surface Launched Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile program. In all, the budget implements the reductions put forward by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, which would trim $78 billion over five years. The White House has played Whack-a-Mole on the JSF engine in particular, finding it pop up over and over again.
More at the link --
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