The Redhunter

"The economy is growing stronger, the recovery is speeding up," Mr. Obama said at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale, Va., where he also proposed a new job-training program. "We can't cut back on those things that are important for us to grow."

Drawing a number of battle lines for the fall campaign, Mr. Obama is inviting another clash with congressional Republicans by calling for short-term spending to create jobs with proposals that GOP lawmakers already have rejected. He would spend $50 billion immediately on transportation infrastructure, $30 billion to modernize schools and $30 billion to hire teachers and emergency workers.
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His budget -- which calls for a total of $350 billion in short-term stimulus spending, a $475 billion highway program and $1.5 trillion in tax increases on wealthier Americans -- has virtually no chance of passing as is, but is intended to highlight the differences between the two parties as Mr. Obama seeks re-election. It would impose a 30 percent minimum tax on those earning $1 million or more.

Mr. Obama also proposes to raise taxes on investment income for families earning more than $250,000. He would tax dividends as ordinary income, raising the top tax rate from 15 percent to 39.6 percent. Taxes on capital gains for the top income bracket would rise from 15 percent to 20 percent.

The president said families earning more than $250,000 per year don't need more tax breaks, but the country needs the money from tax hikes to pay for essential programs for the middle class.
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The president's budget request for fiscal 2013 anticipates borrowing a total of $901 billion, which would be the first time since Mr. Obama took office that the deficit falls below $1 trillion. But the spending plan pegs the deficit for the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, at $1.33 trillion, nearly the same level it was three years after the president promised to cut it in half by the end of 2012.

What did I tell you? More spending, fake cuts, higher taxes, and gargantuan deficits. And as we shall see, once again Obama is understating what he 2013 deficit will be.

And this from a president who came into office promising to cut the deficit.

With all this spending, you'd think that all parts of the government would be growing. But one part will suffer.

Pentagon Budget Cuts Weapons, Troops in 2013
The Washington Times
by Rowan Scarborough
February 12, 2013

The Pentagon is not cutting just manpower to reach deficit-reduction targets: Its 2013 budget released Monday shows the military will spend less on new weapons after two grueling wars.

The procurement line in the $525 billion spending plan calls for $108 billion next year to buy big and small weapon systems such as guns, ships and jet fighters, down nearly 30 percent from 2011.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced budget details last month, with a focus on how the Army and Marine Corps will shed 90,000 troops to save money over the next decade.

The detailed budget shows the services will have less buying power too, as the Air Force copes with an aging fleet of tactical combat aircraft whose average age of 22 years puts them near retirement.

The Navy has $13.5 billion to buy new ships, down from $15 billion two years ago. Analysts doubt the 285-ship Navy can reach its goal of 313 ships in the next five years.
Army procurement drops to $21 billion, from $34 billion in 2011 and $24 billion last year.

The squeeze is part of the Pentagon's blueprint to slash $487 billion in projected spending over the next 10 years to comply with the Budget Control Act. The $525 billion base budget is about $5 billion lower than this year's, setting the stage for a defense downturn not seen since the post-Soviet 1990s.

At a time when China and Iran are on the march, we are disarming.

Krauthammer's Take
February 14, 2012

From Fox's Special Report with Bret Baier | Monday, February 13, 2012
On President Obama's 2013 budget:

The first two years he said "I can't do anything about debt because the recession is on. So I'll appoint a commission which will report after the mid-term election and do it." Of course the [Simpson Bowles] commission reports in December of 2010 and he does nothing about it. He submits a budget last year which was so preposterous -- did nothing about debt, increased it -- that the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats, rejected it 97 to 0. Which is why the budget he submitted today, which is even worse than last year's, is something that Harry Reid doesn't want to go to the Senate floor because it will be rejected and laughed out of the Senate.

How big are the deficits?

Ball Four
National Review
The Editors
February 14, 2012

President Obama's first budget projected 2010-2012 annual deficits of $1.17 trillion, $912 billion, and $581 billion, respectively. The actual deficits for those years were $1.29 trillion, $1.3 trillion, and (a projected) $1.33 trillion.

More on the insanity

Spend, Tax, Retreat National Review
by Rich Lowry
February 14, 2012

Over ten years, spending will increase from $3.8 trillion to $5.8 trillion, for $47 trillion total. Spending doesn't decline in any year. As recently as the end of the Clinton years, spending was about 18 percent of GDP. President Obama plans to spend more than 22 percent of GDP every single year of his hoped-for two terms in office. In 2022, spending will be almost 23 percent of GDP. The increase in spending that we were told was an emergency response to the recession becomes the new normal.
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The president wants to chase the new spending with almost $2 trillion in new taxes -- higher taxes on income, on dividends, on capital gains, and on sundry other targets. Tax receipts will double from $2.5 trillion to $5.1 trillion and hit a little more than 20 percent of GDP in 2022, well above the average since 1940 of 17.4 percent.
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Overall security spending -- a broad category that includes more than just defense -- will go from 5.2 percent of GDP to 3.4 percent. At the same time we are told we are pivoting toward an Asia threatened by a rising China.

But It's Bush's Fault!

Er, no. His deficits, while too high, were small compared to what Obama is doing