Obama Budget Has Contingency for More Aid to Banks

President Barack Obama’s first budget request includes a contingency for as much as $750 billion in new aid to the financial industry this year while laying plans for a health-care system overhaul and higher taxes on the wealthy.

The spending blueprint, sent to Congress today, forecasts record outlays for the current fiscal year of $3.94 trillion, up 32 percent from a year ago. That would yield a record deficit of $1.75 trillion in the year ending Sept. 30, equal to about 12 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product, the highest since World War II.

The 111th Congress makes the spendthrift 51st Congress (see previous post) - the first to take the National Debt to $1 billion - look like parsimonious penny pinchers.