More Details on the President's Budget

In a post earlier this week detailing what's known about the President's budget, we discussed policies that were likely to appear on Monday. Now, the National Journal (via The Wall Street Journal) has more details (subscription required) about some of the numbers we may see come Monday.

These numbers confirm that the budget will look similar to the President's submission to the Super Committee in September. The budget will call for $350 billion of short-term stimulus spending, $360 billion of health care savings, and $1.5 trillion of tax increases, all similar numbers to those in the President's submission. In addition, the budget will revive a proposal from last year's budget to authorize $476 billion of spending over six years on transportation (although last year’s proposal included a higher total of $556 billion for transportation).

Some near-term numbers have also emerged. The FY 2012 and FY 2013 deficits are expected to be $1.33 trillion (8.5 percent of GDP) and $901 billion (5.5 percent of GDP), respectively; however, the Administration has already said that these deficits involve economic assumptions that they believe to be too pessimistic in light of recent improvement in near-term economic forecasts. 

We can expect many more details when the budget is released and President Obama speaks on Monday morning. Be sure to keep checking back to The Bottom Line for continued analysis and commentary of the President's budget.