WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama has sent Congress a
$3.73 trillion budget that holds out the prospect of eventually
bringing deficits under control through spending cuts and tax
increases. But the fiscal blueprint largely ignores his own deficit
commission's recommendations to slash huge entitlement programs
like Social Security and Medicare.
Obama called his new budget one of "tough choices and
sacrifices," but most of those cuts would be held off until after
the end of his first term.
Overall, Obama proposed trimming the deficits by $1.1 trillion
over a decade although his changes would actually add to the
deficits this year and next. Obama is projecting the deficit will
hit an all-time high of $1.65 trillion this year and then drop
sharply to $1.1 trillion in 2012, with an expected improvement in
the economy and as reductions in Social Security withholding and
business taxes disappear.
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)