By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: February 27, 2009
Elections have consequences. President Obama’s new budget represents a huge break, not just with the policies of the past eight years, but with policy trends over the past 30 years. If he can get anything like the plan he announced on Thursday through Congress, he will set America on a fundamentally new course.
The budget will, among other things, come as a huge relief to Democrats who were starting to feel a bit of postpartisan depression. The stimulus bill that Congress passed may have been too weak and too focused on tax cuts. The administration’s refusal to get tough on the banks may be deeply disappointing. But fears that Mr. Obama would sacrifice progressive priorities in his budget plans, and satisfy himself with fiddling around the edges of the tax system, have now been banished.
For this budget allocates $634 billion over the next decade for health reform. That’s not enough to pay for universal coverage, but it’s an impressive start. And Mr. Obama plans to pay for health reform, not just with higher taxes on the affluent, but by putting a halt to the creeping privatization of Medicare, eliminating overpayments to insurance companies.
On another front, it’s also heartening to see that the budget projects $645 billion in revenues from the sale of emission allowances. After years of denial and delay by its predecessor, the Obama administration is signaling that it’s ready to take on climate change.
And these new priorities are laid out in a document whose clarity and plausibility seem almost incredible to those of us who grew accustomed to reading Bush-era budgets, which insulted our intelligence on every page. This is budgeting we can believe in.
moreGood news: The
House and Senate passed the budget.
Hickey: House Budget Puts People First, Invests in our Future,
Helps Us Get Out of the Hole We're In WASHINGTON, APRIL 2 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Campaign for America's Future co-director Roger Hickey said that the federal budget passed by President Obama's allies in the U.S. House marks a major shift from the failed policies that got us into this economic mess.
STATEMENT OF ROGER HICKEY
Conservatives in Washington created the worst economic crisis in generations. They mortgaged the country - running up record deficits and record foreign debts - without making the investments vital to future prosperity. That bill has come due. The economic recovery package and this budget are needed to begin moving us in a dramatically different direction.
This budget represents transformational change. It puts people first, invests in our future and helps us get out of the hole we're in.
People across the country are behind the president's budget because it will move the country toward long-term economic recovery. It makes investments we need to recover - in health care reform, green jobs, climate protection, education and other vital programs for working families.
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