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Obama promises

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama unveiled a multi-trillion-dollar spending plan Thursday that would boost taxes on the wealthy, curtail Medicare, lay the groundwork for universal health care and leave a string of deficits dwarfing any in the nation's history.

In addition to sending Congress his $3.55 trillion budget plan for 2010, Obama proposed more immediate changes that would push spending to $3.94 trillion in the current year. That would result in a record deficit Obama projects will hit $1.75 trillion, reflecting the massive spending being undertaken to battle a severe recession and the worst financial crisis in seven decades.

As part of the effort to end the crisis, the administration proposes boosting the deficit by an additional $250 billion this year, enough to support as much as $750 billion in increased spending under the government's rescue program for banks and other financial institutions. That would more than double the $700 billion bank bailout passed by Congress last October.

Obama, in a morning briefing, spoke of "hard choices that lie ahead." He called his budget "an honest accounting of where we are and where we intend to go."

But Republicans contended Obama was avoiding hard choices in favor of exploding the deficit and raising taxes.

"The American people deserve a budget that puts fiscal discipline and jobs first. The budget offered by the Obama administration fails on both counts," said Rep. Mike Pence, the chairman of the House Republican Conference.

The administration calls the request for additional bailout resources a "placeholder" in advance of a determination by the Treasury Department of what will actually be needed.

The spending blueprint Obama sent Congress was a 134-page outline with further details to come in mid to late April, when the new administration sends up the massive budget books that will flesh out the plan.