WASHINGTON — Democrats in Congress capped President Barack Obama’s 100th day in office by advancing a $3.4 trillion federal budget plan for next year — a third of it borrowed — that bars the GOP from blocking his expansion of government-provided health care over the next decade.
Wednesday’s House and Senate votes to adopt the nonbinding budget blueprint were only a first step toward Obama’s goal of providing health care coverage for all Americans. The budget plan for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 sets the parameters for subsequent tax and spending bills expected to boost clean-energy programs and student aid and extend many of former President George W. Bush’s tax cuts. But the measure does not enact policy.
“It’s a budget that reduces taxes, lowers the deficit and creates jobs,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. “It honors the three pillars of the Obama initiatives: energy, health care and education.”
Obama cheered passage of the plan, saying in a statement that it “builds on the steps we’ve taken over the last 100 days to move this economy from recession to recovery and, ultimately, to prosperity.”
The budget outline also makes it plain that Democrats won’t let a mountain of deficits and debt interfere with advancing Obama’s ambitious but costly agenda. It gives Democrats the option of moving Obama’s health care plan through Congress without the threat of a GOP filibuster.
The Senate adopted the plan by a 53-43 vote just hours after a 233-193 House tally.
New Democrat Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania voted against the measure, as he did when it initially passed the Senate. Not one Republican in the House or Senate voted for it.
Highlights of the blueprint
Spending: Calls for $3.4 trillion in new spending, including $1.2 trillion for defense and domestic programs funded through appropriations bills, and $130 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Non-defense appropriations would receive $40 billion, an 8 percent boost. Benefits programs such as Medicare and Social Security, as well as interest payments on the $11.2 trillion national debt, account for most of the rest.
Taxes: Endorses extending middle-class tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003 under President George W. Bush. Provides a three-year “patch” of the alternative minimum tax so more than 20 million taxpayers don’t get hit with tax increases averaging $2,000 a year. Increases the top income-tax rate from 35 percent to 39.6 percent for individuals making more than $200,000 a year.
Deficits: Projects deficits of $1.7 trillion in 2009, $1.2 trillion in 2010, $916 billion in 2011, $620 billion in 2012, $581 billion in 2013 and $523 billion in 2014.
Debt: Foresees an increase in the national debt to $17 trillion by 2014.
The Associated Press
