Obama Submits $3.8 Trillion Budget – Iraq/Afghanistan have already cost one trillion!!!

US president Barack Obama released a $3.834 trillion budget proposal for the year 2011 today, February 1, 2010, projecting around $1.3 trillion deficit despite a three year non military discretionary spending freeze.

The Obamas budget includes a $6 billion investment in clean energy technologies, a $100 billion job package along with a $3 billion increase in elementary and Secondary Education spending for public schools.

The $100 billion job package includes tax breaks to small businesses that would in turn encourage employers to increase the hiring in companies.

The 2011 budget also seeks a 3 year non military discretionary spending freeze, one of the budgets many attempts to bring down the federal deficit. The plan calls for higher taxes on families who earn more than $250,000 a year, through the expiration of tax cuts implemented by former President George W. Bush in the year 2001 and 2003.

A levy fee on large banks means the government would regain $90 billion in losses stemming from the $700 billion rescue fund..

The budget would be highly debated and discussed in Congress where the Republican lawmakers will come out with their own ideas and what should have been included in the 2011 budget.
The Obama administration plans to unveil a defense budget on Monday that pours billions into drones, helicopters and special forces, reflecting a focus on fighting Islamist extremists rather than conventional armies.

The Pentagon’s spending priorities as well as its strategic vision — which is also due to be unveiled this week — are a product of the counter-insurgency campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan that have severely stretched the military.

The proposed 2011 defense budget comes to more than 700 billion dollars, a modest two percent increase, and unlike last year avoids sweeping cuts to major weapons programs, according to Pentagon officials and draft documents.

Despite alarm over the US government’s ballooning deficit, Obama has spared the military from belt-tightening efforts and will ask for 33 billion dollars for the current fiscal year to pay for a surge of 30,000 reinforcements in Afghanistan, said officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have already cost one trillion dollars since 2001, and the new budget calls for roughly 159 billion dollars to cover the costs of the US missions there — including about 11.6 billion to expand the Afghan security forces, officials said.

The budget asks for 9.6 billion for a range of helicopters — a lifeline for troops fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan’s rugged landscape — and 2.7 billion for unmanned drones and sensors used to hunt down insurgents.

The Pentagon sets a goal of nearly doubling the fleet of MQ-9 Reapers, unmanned planes that can carry precision-guided bombs, a coveted weapon that has transformed US tactics.

With special forces seen as serving a pivotal role in helping hunt down Al-Qaeda figures and training allied troops, the budget provides 6.3 billion dollars to provide equipment, training and 2,800 additional soldiers for the service.

In a longer-term strategy document mandated by Congress every four years, the Pentagon declares winning “today’s wars” as the military’s top priority, citing Afghanistan, Iraq and other unnamed countries where US forces can help to “dismantle terrorist networks,” according to a draft of the report.

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