Obama’s Budget; Wisconsin

A Boss is like a diaper...

(1) Obama’s Budget: Our trustworthy source for analysis of Obama’s 2012 budget proposal:  The National Priorities Project:

Presidents Budget 2012: Values By The Numbers

Feb. 18, 2011

National Priorities Project offers four detailed analyses of President Obama’s $3.7 trillion budget for Fiscal Year 2012 focused on: expenditures, revenue and deficits, the impact of federal spending on the states and a detailed FY2012 budget overview with a selection of actual and projected revenue and spending charts.

FY2012 Spending in Historical Perspective

What’s inside?

• Bar Chart – compares actual FY2008 (last year before the recession) to estimated FY2011 and proposed FY2012
• Federal Budget Pie Chart – shows percentages of spending for Mandatory, Discretionary and interest owed on the national debt

FY2012 Revenues and Deficits in Historical Perspective
What’s inside?

• Bar Chart – breaks out FY2000 to FY2012 federal revenue and borrowing
• Pie Chart – details projected FY2012 revenues by source

Note: these features contain embedded information that is accessed by scrolling over each bar or pie slice.

Federal Spending at the State Level
What’s inside?

• Fully Downloadable Table – presents state-level funding for thirty-three federal programs, including Medicaid, SNAP, CHIP, LIHEAP and public housing
• View by state or program
• Compares FY2010 actual spending with FY2011 estimated spending and FY2012 proposed spending
• Click on the program to find out more about what it funds

The President’s Budget Unveiled
What’s inside?

• Analysis – a complete overview of President Obama’s proposed budget highlighting salient points and offering key questions to consider
• Revenue and Spending Charts – a selection of actual and projected revenue and spending information in easy-to-understand chart formats

(2) More on Wisconsin: Things have continued to heat up in Wisconsin;  the message seems to be getting out there that the budget deficit is a pretext, in fact caused by tax breaks for businesses, all an excuse to bust unions. Here are some links about the ongoing push-back against the forces of reaction there:

• Doug Henwood of Left Business Observer was out there to give a talk, and had this to say upon his return to Brooklyn;
• Folks from the Center for Media and Democracy were doing live blogging from the protests yesterday;
• Our pal Mark Engler had a blog post at the Dissent website entitled The Wisconsin Uprising;
• An even more explicit comparison between Madison and Cairo appears at Alternet: Is Wisconsin Our Egypt??
• Michael Hudson (the economist, not the journalist) is interviewed at the Real News Network on how Obama’s Budget Pushes States into War with Their Unions.

That’s all I have for now–back to work on the March/April issue.

–Chris Sturr