Mon Feb 13 2012
President Barack Obama's budget lays the groundwork for some intense battles in and with Congress over taxes and spending that will test the seriousness of the newly proclaimed effort to attack the deficit.
An early test will be this administration's attempt, like administrations before it, to kill the C-17 cargo plane that the Pentagon says it neither needs nor wants. Doing so would save $2.5 billion but lawmakers regularly reinstate the money to save jobs back home.
Another test will be how liberal Democrats shake out on money for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The administration is asking for $33 billion for this current year and $159 billion for next fiscal year. That should make the doves uneasy because it shows the administration's determination to sustain the buildup of 30,000 additional troops in Afghanistan. The debate over funding could help crystallize a bonafide anti-war wing within the Democratic Party, which would be one more political obstacle for Obama.
Lawmakers from Florida, Alabama, Texas and other states with space-related facilities are sure to be upset over Obama's plan to kill the manned moon mission, a legacy of President George W. Bush, at a savings of $100 billion over the 10-year life of the program. This will be something of a crossroads for NASA because there is no backup plan for manned space exploration.
One fight already under way is Obama's plan to use $30 billion in bailout money to underwrite small-business loans. The law creating the bailout fund requires that any excess or any money repaid to the fund be used to pay down the national debt. That payment would be minuscule, considering the debt is now close to $12.5 trillion, but it would have great symbolic importance to some lawmakers.
One of the few non-security agencies to escape Obama's hold down on expenses is the Department of Education, whose budget the president plans to increase by more than 6 percent, to almost $50 billion. Education may cause a particularly lively debate because Bush's No Child Left Behind law must be renewed and conservatives are likely to oppose Obama's plans for its overhaul. The GOP still favors Bush's education accountability standards and strongly opposes still more federal control over a responsibility that has traditionally been state and local. Democrats, many of whom enjoy the support of the education lobby, look less kindly on No Child Left Behind but it's doubtful they'd draw a line in the sand if that meant threatening cuts in funding for schools.
Much of Obama's spending would be paid for by allowing Bush's tax cuts for high-income earners to expire, which would raise close to a trillion dollars over the decade. The Democratic leadership in Congress can do that simply by doing nothing. Restoring the tax cuts would require an affirmative vote, which could be difficult given the current atmosphere. Then again, anything is difficult in the current atmosphere. How the budget battle is resolved may demonstrate how much -- or how little -- political capital President Obama has as his presidency enters a critical year.
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