Gregg & Orszag Face-Off Over Obama's 2011 Budget

Senator Grills White House Budget Director




Sources: CNN

Hensarling vs. Obama: GOP Skeptical About Obama's 2011 Budget

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Republicans Blast President Obama On His Budget


The bipartisan feelings between President Barack Obama and House Republicans barely survived the weekend.

Republicans are ripping into Obama’s fiscal 2011 budget today, criticizing the spending increases, record deficits and tax increases on the wealthy.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) hinted at hypocrisy in the White House’s budget, which was delivered to Capitol Hill this morning. He said that Obama spoke about “the importance of fiscal responsibility” at his conference’s retreat in Baltimore last weekend but delivered a budget that “spends too much, taxes too much and borrows too much.”

Boehner said the budget is filled with “reckless spending and more unsustainable debt.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), like all other Republicans, blasted the budget.

“This budget provides a startling figure that should stop us all in our tracks,” McConnell said. “According to the administration’s budget, the interest on the federal debt is expected to be nearly 6 trillion dollars over the next decade. We’ve all heard about interest-only loans, but this is the equivalent of an average of $600 billion dollars in interest every year. That’s an astonishing number.”

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) had little praise of the president’s spending plan, saying in a statement that it “spends more than any other in history, creates the largest deficits in history, and imposes the largest tax increases in history — at a time when our country can least afford it.”

Democrats defended Obama’s budget and dismissed the Republican criticisms as predictable.

Taking the Senate floor Monday afternoon, Majority Leader Harry Reid defended the President's budget, saying Obama's plan prioritized putting Americans back to work and "smartly" invested in infrastructure, science and technology.

Reid continued by going after Republicans for their "no" votes on both the "Pay-as-you-go" and the Conrad-Gregg debt reduction commission amendments last week—calling their dissent "a real shame" and a "partisan game."

"The Republicans voted in unison against pay-as-you-go, a simple concept that we should only spend what we as a government have. Some Republicans [who] sponsored the legislation creating the deficit reduction commission voted against their own bill. Had they voted with us, the bill would have passed," Reid said. "Our economy and our future cannot afford partisan games like that."

Still, after Obama’s widely praised question and answer session with Republicans, the GOP leaders tried to find something nice to say.

Boehner said Obama’s funds for troops in Afghanistan and Iraq “ensures our troops…have the resources they need to succeed in their mission.”

Cantor, however, did add that Obama’s spending freeze, “is a step in the right direction, but one that is far too small considering the fiscal situation we face.”

Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), who asked Obama on Friday if his budget would triple the nation’s debt, thinks he got the answer to his lingering question Monday.

“This budget sends a clear signal to American taxpayers who are tired of the spending, deficits and bailouts — and who recognize that they are not working — that the president is taking the policies they have rejected to a new high,” Hensarling said. “This is clear evidence that the president is ignoring the will of the American taxpayers who want Washington to go on a diet.”

Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), the top Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, said the budget has “too many new taxes, too much new spending and too much debt, all of which will discourage hiring and further reduce Americans’ job security.”

“While I am glad to see the budget seeks to increase exports of American-made goods and services, those efforts are far outweighed by trillions of dollars in job-killing tax hikes,” Camp said in a statement.



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Sources: Politico, MSNBC, Fox News, Youtube, Google Maps

Obama's 2011 Budget Highlights: NASA's Moonwalk Out, EPA & "Green Jobs" In

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Obama's 2011 Budget: What's In It For The Clean Energy Sector


President Obama unveiled his 2011 budget today requesting from Congress a multi-trillion dollar spending plan for the federal government. The spending bill is seeking a record-breaking $1.56 trillion to help boost America's flagging economy and there is significant funds earmarked for clean energy investment and "greebn" job creation.

Commenting today on the 2011 budget proposal, Secretary of Energy, Stephen Chu said that:

"The President's budget cuts wasteful spending while making wise investments in innovation and clean energy that will put Americans back to work, save families money and keep our nation competitive in the global marketplace This budget supports new approaches to energy research and invests in the next generation of scientists and engineers, and it will spark new clean energy projects nationwide, including restarting the American nuclear power industry."

You can check out all the details on the Office of Management and Budget page, but I want to highlight for you some of the specific spending in the package relating directly to the clean energy sector.

Department of Energy

Under spending for the US Department of Energy, the 2011 budget provides for $28.4 billion in spending overall to support the DOE mandate, which is to, "support scientific innovation, develop clean and secure energy technologies, maintain national security, and reduce environmental risk." Funds earmarked for clean energy include:

* $500 million in credit subsidy to support $3 billion to $5 billion in loan guarantees for innovative energy efficiency and renewable energy projects.

* $144 million for research, development, and demonstration activities to modernize the grid including smart-grid technologies that will spur the transition to a smarter, more efficient, secure and reliable electric system, resulting in energy- and cost-saving choices for consumers, reduced emissions, and growth of renewable energy sources.



* $4.7 billion in clean energy technology investments at DOE, including:

o Nearly $2.4 billion, an increase of $113 million, for energy efficiency and renewable energy programs including $302 million for solar energy, $220 million for biofuels and biomass R&D, $325 million for advanced vehicle technologies, and $231 million for energy efficient building technologies.

o $545 million for advanced coal climate change technologies to focus resources to develop carbon capture technologies with broad applications to advanced coal power systems, existing power plants, and industrial sources.

o $300 million for the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy to accelerate game-changing energy technologies in need of rapid and flexible experimentation or engineering.

o $793 million for clean energy activities and civilian nuclear energy programs, including research and development and infrastructure programs. The budget includes a new cross-cutting research program to address technology needs for all aspects of nuclear energy production.

* Phase-out funding for inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that impede investment in clean energy sources and undermine efforts to deal with the threat of climate change.

Department of the Interior

The DOI's overall budget for 2011 will remain the same, and there is $73 million earmarked, "to build agency capacity to review and permit renewable energy projects on federal lands. DOI has set a goal to permit at least 9,000 megawatts of new solar, wind, and geothermal electricity generation capacity on DOI-managed lands by the end of 2011."

Department of Labor

$85 million is earmarked for, "green job training, providing support for about 14,000 participants."

Environmental Protection Agency

Under the Environmental Protection Agency, the main regulatory body for environmental monitoring and regulation, the Obama administration is requesting $10 billion overall, which accordingto the White House is, "a substantially higher annual amount than requested under any previous Administration."

Specific EPA spending as it relates to the clean energy sector includes:

* $21 million – an increase of $4 million from 2010 – to implement the Mandatory Greenhouse Gas Reporting Rule and ensure the availability of high-quality emissions data.
* $56 million– including $43 million in new funding – for the EPA and states to address climate change effectively through regulatory initiatives to control greenhouse gas emissions

Department of Transportation

The Department of Transportation's budget request for 2011 is $78.8 billion with $530 million earmarked for, "Sustainable Communities to help State and local governments invest in sustainable transportation infrastructure that integrates with housing development and other critical investments."


Sources: Whitehouse.gov, Huffington Post, MSNBC, CNN, Zimbio

Pres. Obama To Unveil Omnibus $3.8 Trillion 2010 Budget

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Five years, $5.08 Trillion In Debt


President Barack Obama’s new $3.83 trillion budget — on its way to Congress Monday — anticipates an even worse deficit this year than last and no big improvement until the economy improves and the nation sheds the crushing costs of two wars overseas.

It’s a bleak, nerve-wracking landscape for any White House, but the president is still betting on significant new spending for education and clean energy initiatives, including billions in loan guarantees for the nuclear power industry.

He would hire thousands of new personnel to process veterans’ claims faster, and amid everything else, wants billions to resolve the complaints of soldiers and airmen exposed to Agent Orange in the Vietnam War.

But behind the brave face, Obama’s budget anticipates that Iraq and Afghanistan war funding will hover near $160 billion for both 2010 and 2011— far more than he had hoped when elected and only modestly less than in the last years of the Bush Administration.

The strain shows itself in the new deficit projections, far worse than what the White House forecast in its first budget at this time a year ago.

After a record $1.4 trillion shortfall in 2009, the administration now says the red ink will reach $1.56 trillion this year and be little better, $1.27 trillion in 2011.

In fact, it’s not until 2014 and 2015— when Obama hopes to be in his second term— that he has any hope of deficits approaching a sustainable level. Even then he is banking heavily on a new bipartisan fiscal commission to really finish the job.

The outlook— more pessimistic than Congressional Budget Office deficit estimates last week—adds up to $5.08 trillion in red ink over the next five years. That’s $1.32 trillion or 35% more than the White House predicted 12 months ago; about two-thirds of this deterioration can be traced directly back to lower revenues and the higher cost of the wars.

Obama’s response thus far has been to allow high-end Bush-era tax breaks to expire after 2010 for those earning more than $250,000 and to impose a three-year freeze on domestic spending. A new levy on big banks would help recoup government losses from the Treasury’s financial industry rescue plan, and he is again targeting oil, gas and coal tax preferences worth about $40 billion over 10 years.

In a conference call with reporters late Sunday, White House officials portrayed the budget as pragmatic and leaning neither to the left or right. But the president’s credibility is sure to be tested by the effectiveness of his promised freeze, impacting about $447 billion in annual appropriations.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s new $10 billion budget reflects a cut of about 3% or $278 million, for example. This leaves less money to sustain the very rapid growth seen last year in clean water programs. And annual funding for the Great Lakes restoration initiative — a big priority for Obama’s Chicago friends and House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) —will be scaled back from $475 million last year to $300 million now.

But on balance, the president’s plan seems less restrictive in many areas than lawmakers had anticipated. With the Senate having just passed a $1.9 trillion debt ceiling increase last week, fiscal moderates in his own party may insist on even tighter limits.

Obama begins with a built-in cushion since about $5 billion in 2010 Census spending won’t have to be repeated in 2011. A big portion of expanded Pell Grant funding for low-income college students is being treated as a mandatory cost outside the freeze covering the Education Department’s discretionary budget. And both Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security are exempted altogether and are expected to get combined spending increases of $5 billion.

In the case of education, a top priority for the president, the department’s appropriations would grow by about $3.5 billion to $49.7 billion, a 7.5% increase. But when Pell Grants are counted, the total increase is closer to $11.4 billion or 16% above current spending.

The Energy Department’s budget would grow by about $1.8 billion or 6.8%. And to stretch these dollars further, Obama is devoting $500 million to a new credit program with the potential to generate up to $36 billion in loan guarantees for the nuclear power industry.

Other departments like Health and Human Services or Labor receive much smaller increases, more in the range of inflation or less. But within these totals, the National Institutes of Health would grow by about $1 billion or 3%. Community health centers and Head Start are also promised increases, and a teen pregnancy program would be expanded from $100 million to almost $180 million.

Mindful of the strain on state and local law enforcement budgets, the administration proposes increased funding for the COP’s program within the Justice Department. And the Homeland Security budget includes $200 million in new grant funding to help cities pay for beefed-up security in the event of a Guantanamo detainee being tried in a local federal court.

The budget’s increased war funding is not entirely surprising given Obama’s decision to add more U.S. forces in Afghanistan. And his early estimates for 2011 in last year’s budget were always suspect and more of a “plug” than real.

Nonetheless, seeing everything in a single budget brings the war costs more into focus. Democrats are increasingly agitated by the pace of withdrawal from Iraq, and the combined costs of the two wars is striking -– especially when measured against the much more hopeful rhetoric of Obama’s campaign.

The president’s 2010 defense budget a year ago requested $130 billion for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and just $50 billion in 2011. The new budget ramps up 2010 spending to $163 billion and, for 2011, requests $159 billion in overseas contingency funds for the military.

This reverses the drop in war-related spending seen in fiscal 2009, which ended last Sept. 30 and was a transition year of sorts between the two administrations. When compared to the peak war spending of the Bush years, Obama is only about 10% below Bush’s annual average of $176 billion in fiscal years 2007 and 2008—the time of the Iraq war surge.

Core defense spending is also feeling the strain, and the president’s $549 billion request reflects less than 2% real growth over inflation,

At a time when Obama is emphasizing jobs creation, this sets up what could be bitter election-year fights with Democrats over plans to halt airplane and truck production important to employment California and the Midwest.

Indiana, for example, promises to be a tough battleground for Sen. Evan Bayh and fellow Democrats in the House, but the defense budget would terminate Army purchases of HMMWV vehicles built by AM General in the northern portion of the state.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates is expected to redouble his campaign against the C-17 transport plane this year, much as he successfully went after F-22 production last year. And while the Pentagon is committing still more money to the F-35 joint strike fighter, production will slip a year to allow more testing, and Gates seems determined to take on lawmakers again over their insistence that that there be a second manufacturer to produce engines for the fighter.

The 2011 budget debate won’t hit full stride until this spring, but Democrats may move earlier than usual on a supplemental spending bill for the current fiscal year.

The Defense Department is seeking $33 billion in additional war-related funding, on top of which the State Department will also be receiving additional funds for its beefed up operations in Afghanistan. Rep. John Murtha (D—Pa.), chairman of the House defense appropriations panel, wants to include any requests related to Haiti in the same package, and the budget reflects at least two supplemental spending requests for 2010 from domestic departments.

The Homeland Security budget anticipates $3.6 billion in disaster-related funds for FEMA, and the VA may seek another $13.4 billion, much of it in relationship with a fund to resolve health claims related to exposure to Agent Orange.


Sources: Politico, MSNBC