WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama sent Congress a detailed budget Thursday boasting of cutting or killing 121 federal programs in a belt-tightening he likened to that of most Americans in difficult times. But the trims amounted to a tiny fraction of the new spending he wants, and some already have been nixed by allies on Capitol Hill.
Obama said his cuts would amount to $17 billion — about a half a percent of spending in a budget totaling well over $3 trillion for the fiscal year that begins in October. He’s estimating the government’s red ink will be $1.2 trillion, down slightly from this year’s all-time record.
He portrayed the cuts as a mix in which some are “more painful than others.” Republicans scoffed that the cuts weren’t nearly enough.
If there was a theme to Obama’s plan, it was to provide generous increases to domestic programs that were squeezed during the eight years of the Bush administration while reviving oft-rejected Bush-era proposals to cut programs that critics say have outlived their usefulness but still have key support on Capitol Hill.
“What we’re trying to do is reorient government activity toward things that work,” said White House Budget Director Peter Orszag.
On the spending side, Obama proposed:
• Plowing $2 billion more into merit-based teacher pay to help failing schools turn around. He would spend $370 million on a successor to the Reading First literacy program, a key element of Bush’s No Child Left Behind law.
• Spending an additional $584 million for pandemic flu efforts, on top of the $1.5 billion in emergency money for 2009 that he asked Congress for in the wake of the swine-flu outbreak.
• Increasing child nutrition programs by $1 billion, partly to pay for a 20 percent increase in the number of food inspectors.
• Setting up a $1 billion program to develop or rehabilitate housing for the poor.
