OMB chief: Hill's budget ideas mirror Obama's plan

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

Source: AP

WASHINGTON – The White House sought Wednesday to stress the positive in a looming fight with Congress over a $3.6 trillion budget, saying blueprints put forth by Democratic allies hew closely to President Barack Obama's priorities.

Budget director Peter Orszag told reporters that companion fiscal 2010 blueprints emerging from the House and Senate budget panels will bolster administration efforts to give a higher priority to education and clean energy programs as well as taking into account Obama's desire to overhaul health care.

Obama has been hearing increasingly vocal opposition to the blueprint he sent to Congress last month, however, and he arranged to travel to Capitol Hill later Wednesday to meet with Democrats. Some of the opposition on spending, particularly, has come from moderate to conservative members of his own party. For their part, Republicans have almost universally assailed his spending plan as overly ambitious, saying that it would dump trillions in debt on future generations.

The budget panels, in fact, submitted plans that would discard Obama's signature $400 tax credit for most workers after it expires at the end of next year. According to their budget outline, that tax break could only be extended if other taxes are raised to pay for it.



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