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President Obama doesn’t think unemployment within the next decade will return to the relatively low level it was in 2007 when he launched his presidential campaign, at least according to supplemental documents to his Fiscal Year 2011 budget. Whether you consider the president’s assumptions about unemployment bleak or realistic, they will likely not come as welcome news to the millions of unemployed and underemployed – or to Democrats hoping to win elections in the next decade. In the supplemental volume “Analytical Perspectives,” the Obama administration estimates that the annual average rate of unemployment will remain at 10% for 2010, and...

The sheer numbers in the president’s latest spending plan are jaw-dropping: a $1.6 trillion deficit this year, $1.3 trillion next year, and a ten-year deficit outlook of $8.5 trillion. The budget also calls for a permanent expansion of the federal government by 3 percent of GDP; a $2 trillion decades-long tax increase on every single American under the auspices of health-care reform and cap-and-trade energy policies; deficits of more than $1 trillion until 2020; and a doubling of the publicly held national debt to more than $18 trillion. For years, Republicans and Democrats have been warning about the dangers posed...

Rick Sanchez defended Obama's budget on CNN Monday. He was attempting to methodically debunk Republican claims about Obama budgets, arguing that most of the trillions in spending came on Republicans' watch and Obama just added a little bit. He started by claiming that Obama came into office facing a $1.2 trillion budget. Obama makes the same claim. Actually, the deficit for 2008, Bush's last year in office, was $459 billion. Bush does share responsibility for TARP though, so one could say that Obama was only partially responsible for 2009's deficit, even though his proposals added $787 billion in new spending...

(CNSNews.com) - In his budget message to Congress Monday, President Barack Obama said, “Already, we have made historic strides … to cut wasteful spending.” He made the comment while presenting a budget proposal that for the second year in a row would fix federal spending at a percentage of Gross Domestic Product that is higher than at any time in the past 65 years. In both fiscal 2010 and fiscal 2011, Obama’s budgets would have the federal government spend more than a quarter of the all the wealth produced by the nation in that year. No president since Franklin Delano...

President Obama on Monday will propose a $3.8-trillion fiscal 2011 federal budget that includes $237 million for the purchase and upgrading of a prison in Illinois to house detainees now at the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba. Obama sends his spending blueprint to Congress, with the money to buy the nearly vacant Thomson Correctional Center in northwest Illinois, 150 miles west of Chicago, in the Department of Justice funding request. The State of Illinois and the federal government are currently negotiating over the purchase price of Thomson. During a briefing with reporters on Sunday afternoon previewing the budget--the contents...

With President Obama's budget proposal for the 2011 fiscal year out on the street, we take an early look at some of the winners and losers, in no particular order: WINNERS 1. K-12 education. Despite the straitened times and his freeze on overall discretionary spending, Obama is increasing federal funding for public education, one of the three main areas of his domestic agenda, alongside energy and health-care reform. The Education Department's proposed budget is up by nearly $3 billion, or more than 6 percent. 2. Research and development. Also preserved is spending on research and development in renewable energy and...

Whether you believe the global warming moonbats or not, whether you think that energy company's make too much money or not, there is one thing that is settled in the President's new budget... we are going to be paying more for energy. And if you are paying more for energy so are the companies that manufacture the products you use at home and the retail outlets that sell those products, which mean in the end you are going to be paying more for everything. If this sounds familiar it should, because that is exactly what happened just before the housing...

First lady Michelle Obama said Tuesday the president's 2011 budget will include a record $8.8 billion to support military families. The largest sum, $1.9 billion, would be spent on counseling and other support services. An additional $1.3 billion would go for military child care.

After much congressional handwringing over what budget process reform to attach to a must-pass increase in the debt ceiling, support for the legislative proposal crafted by Senate Budget Committee leaders Kent Conrad (D-ND) and Judd Gregg (R-NH) has crumbled. It fell apart as many members recognized two political facts of life. One is that it would inevitably lead to tax increases. The other, reinforced by the Massachusetts election, is that Americans are in no mood for a back-room, members-only commission that rushes its plan through Congress just after the November election.

President Obama’s budget guru has a secret love child — with the woman he jilted before hooking up with his hot new fiance, The Post has learned. White House budget director Peter Orszag’s ex, shipping heiress Claire Milonas, gave birth to little Tatiana Zoe in New York Nov. 17. That was just six weeks before Orzsag and ABC news babe Bianna Golodryga gleefully announced their engagement on national TV and in the press. Orszag and Milonas, the daughter of New York-based Greek shipping magnate Spiros Milonas, were a serious item when he met the stunning Golodgryga at the White House...

Truth In Accounting had an incredibly important 50 state study that needs to be broadcast far and wide. It shows the mess that every state in the union is in with the budget.When the Institute for Truth in Accounting (the IFTA) began to design “The Truth about Balanced Budgets—A Fifty State Study” (the Study) in early 2008 our purpose was to widely examine the effect accounting principles and policies have on states’ budgeting and financial reporting practices. Experience in Illinois indicated to the IFTA that this state’s budgeting process used unsound accounting principles and evaded the intent of balanced budgets...

NASA needs more cash in order to meet its goal of finding nearby space rocks that could hit Earth in a devastating impact, a new report says. Congress ordered NASA in 2005 to find and track 90 percent of the large asteroids near Earth by 2020, but did not set aside the necessary funds required to do the job, according to a report released Wednesday by the National Academy of Sciences. Without that funding, NASA will not be able to build the new facilities and telescopes required to track potentially threatening asteroids down to the size of about 460 feet...

Congress assigned the space agency four years ago to watch 90 per cent of potentially deadly rocks hurtling through space by 2020 but never gave it the money to build the necessary telescopes, according to a report by the National Academy of Sciences. The agency estimates that about 20,000 asteroids and comets in Earth's solar system bigger than 460 feet in diameter are potential threats to the planet. Rocks between 460 feet and 3,280 feet in diameter can devastate an entire region Lindley Johnson, NASA's manager of the near-Earth objects program, said. So far, scientists know the whereabouts of about...

In March Obama proposed $634 Billion in his budget as a "down payment" or "reserve" for health care reform. I don't recall if it made it to the final bill. I do know Congress rejected his proposal to offset it by eliminating charitable deductions for high earners. So maybe it got tossed altogether. If it's in the Omnibus Budget, how does that work? Is that money included in the spending side of the health care bill?

Recently, high-profile visitors to the White House, including senior corporate executives, have found themselves paying for their own meals when sitting down with President Barack Obama, something unheard of in previous White Houses, according to former aides to President George W. Bush and President Bill Clinton. Thus far, there have been at least three instances -- the most recent coming last Friday -- where CEOs or other non-political guests were asked before arriving to the West Wing to provide credit card information so that their meals could be billed to them. According to one source, the meals cost between $20...

PBS chief Paula Kerger (KUR'-gur) says budget numbers tell the tale of how public TV is faring under the Obama administration, compared to that of former President George W. Bush. Kerger said that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's $430 million budget for this year was left intact by President Barack Obama, in contrast to the Bush administration's repeated bids to reduce or eliminate the federal subsidy. Kerger says Congress countered Bush's actions.

Imagine a fighter jet that would give the United States complete air superiority in any conflict. An aircraft that’s faster, has longer range, and is more fuel-efficient at high speeds than any aircraft ever built. A plane virtually invisible to radar and deadly accurate, almost guaranteeing that any selected target would be destroyed. An aircraft so advanced that the armed forces of every country on earth are scared to death of it and know that they would be defenseless against it for years to come. We have that plane. It’s called the F-22 Raptor, and our President and Commander-in-Chief, Barack...

Under current law, the federal budget is on an unsustainable path, because federal debt will continue to grow much faster than the economy over the long run. Although great uncertainty surrounds long-term fiscal projections, rising costs for health care and the aging of the population will cause federal spending to increase rapidly under any plausible scenario for current law. Unless revenues increase just as rapidly, the rise in spending will produce growing budget deficits.

Congressional Budget Office Director’s Blog -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- « Intergovernmental Mandates in Federal LegislationThe Long-Term Budget Outlook Today I had the opportunity to testify before the Senate Budget Committee about CBO’s most recent analysis of the long-term budget outlook. Under current law, the federal budget is on an unsustainable path, because federal debt will continue to grow much faster than the economy over the long run. Although great uncertainty surrounds long-term fiscal projections, rising costs for health care and the aging of the population will cause federal spending to increase rapidly under any plausible scenario for current law. Unless revenues increase just...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government rang up a $94.32 billion budget deficit in June, a record for the month, as the price tag for efforts to prop up the economy, banks and automakers mounted while revenues weakened. The Treasury Department said on Monday that June marked the ninth straight month in which the government had run a deficit. In June 2008, the budget enjoyed a $33.55 billion surplus