Obama Submits $3.8 Trillion Budget – Iraq/Afghanistan have already cost one trillion!!!
Sunday, March 7th, 2010
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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You know Republicans up the past 8 years so bad, all they have is revisionism and scare tactics . Example, No terrorist attacks happened during the Bush years ? Obama created the deficit ? Things are not getting better ? Republicans have all the answers after a year in exile ? All of this is a desperate attempt by Republicans to gain back power so they can up this country for another 8 years . Rachel Maddow illustrates very well what Obama has done since Bush left office . She also shows why the stimulus though not perfect , did keep a recession from turning into a great depression . Though the down turns not over . I feel we need a second stimulus, only to help home owners, small business, community banks (no big banks) , states to pay down their debt, unemployed . When there is a recession you don’t have a spending freeze (Hoover economics 101) . When a bridge is broken, you place up a temporary one until the bridge is fixed again . You don’t close the bridge .
Christ’s words to his bride; John the Baptist’s words of praise to Christ, and the devout prayers he pours forth in Christ’s presence on behalf of Christians and especially for a certain knight. Through John’s prayers, the knight, with his own hands and with the helping hands of the glorious Virgin and of Peter and Paul, is armed and decorated with spiritual weapons, that is, with the virtues. Also, what each of these bodily weapons signifies, and about praying well.
Barack Obama has vowed to make pay equality for women a top priority if elected president, an analysis of his Senate staff shows that women are outnumbered and out-paid by men. 
The Obamas – Barack, Michelle Obama, Malia Obama and Sasha Obama sit down for their first family interview together in Butte, Montana. They talk about family, love and politics.Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. born August 4, 1961 is the junior United States Senator from Illinois and a candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 2008 U.S. presidential election.Born to a Kenyan father and an American mother, he spent most of his early life in Honolulu, Hawaii. From ages six to ten, he lived in Jakarta with his mother and Indonesian stepfather. A graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, Obama worked as a community organizer, university lecturer, and civil rights lawyer before running for public office and serving in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004. After an unsuccessful bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000, he announced his campaign for U.S. Senate in 2003.The following year, while still an Illinois state legislator, Obama delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in November 2004 with 70% of the vote. As a member of the Democratic minority in the 109th Congress, he co-sponsored bipartisan legislation for controlling conventional weapons and for promoting greater public accountability in the use of federal funds. He also made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. In the current 110th Congress, he has sponsored legislation on lobbying and electoral fraud, climate change, nuclear terrorism, and care for returned U.S. military personnel.Since announcing his presidential campaign in February 2007, Obama has emphasized ending the Iraq War, increasing energy independence, and providing universal health care as his top three priorities. He married in 1992 and has two daughters. He has written two bestselling books: a memoir of his youth titled Dreams from My Father, and The Audacity of Hope, a personal commentary on U.S. politics.Personal lifeObama met his future wife, Michelle Robinson, in 1988 when he was employed as a summer associate at the Chicago law firm of Sidley & Austin. Assigned for three months as Obama’s advisor at the firm, Robinson joined him at group social functions, but declined his initial offers to date. They began dating later that summer, became engaged in 1991, and were married in October 1992. The couple’s first daughter, Malia Ann, was born in 1998, followed by a second daughter, Natasha (”Sasha”), in 2001. Applying the proceeds of a $2 million book deal, the family paid off debts in 2005 and moved from a Hyde Park, Chicago condominium to their current $1.6-million house in neighboring Kenwood. The house purchase and subsequent acquisition of an adjoining strip of land drew media scrutiny in November 2006 because of financial links with controversial Illinois businessman Tony Rezko. In December 2007, Money magazine estimated the Obama family’s net worth at $1.3 million. Obama plays basketball, a sport he participated in as a member of his high school’s varsity team. He is left-handed. Before announcing his presidential candidacy, he began a well-publicized effort to quit smoking. “I’ve never been a heavy smoker,” Obama told the Chicago Tribune. “I’ve quit periodically over the last several years. I’ve got an ironclad demand from my wife that in the stresses of the campaign I do not succumb. I’ve been chewing Nicorette strenuously.” Replying to an Associated Press survey of 2008 presidential candidates’ personal tastes, he specified “architect” as his alternate career choice and “chili” as his favorite meal to cook. Asked to name a “hidden talent,” Obama answered: “I’m a pretty good poker player.”A theme of Obama’s 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote address, and the title of his 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope, was inspired by his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. In Chapter 6 of the book, titled “Faith,” Obama writes that he “was not raised in a religious household.” He describes his mother, raised by non-religious parents, as detached from religion, yet “in many ways the most spiritually awakened person that I have ever known.” He describes his Kenyan father as “raised a Muslim,” but a “confirmed atheist” by the time his parents met, and his Indonesian stepfather as “a man who saw religion as not particularly useful.” The chapter details how Obama, in his twenties, while working with local churches as a community organizer, came to understand “the power of the African American religious tradition to spur social change”:He joined Trinity United Church of Christ in 1988. A megachurch with 10,000 members, Trinity is the largest congregation in the United Church of Christ. Obama family goes Unplugged on Access Hollywood! (pt 1 of 4)
The glorious Virgin’s words explaining her humility to her daughter, and about how humility is likened to a cloak, and about the characteristics of true humility and its wonderful fruits.
Current & Twitter have teamed up for the very first time to integrate real-time Twitter messages (aka “tweets”) over major portions over the live Presidential and Vice-Presidential debates.
Embarrassment is an emotional state experienced upon having a socially or professionally unacceptable act or condition witnessed by or revealed to others. 
Five years ago today, the international court of justice in The Hague published its advisory opinion on Israel’s separation wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). The keenly awaited verdict, requested by the UN’s general assembly, was clear: Israel’s wall is illegal, it must be removed and adequate compensation paid.
The Obamas – Barack, Michelle Obama, Malia Obama and Sasha Obama sit down for their first family interview in Butte, Montana. In the final part of our Obama family interview, the girls reveal their good times away from the campaign trail.