Obama's Real Budget Plan (and Why It's a Huge Gamble)

By Robert Reich, RobertReich.org
Posted on April 18, 2011, Printed on April 21, 2011

Paul Ryan says his budget plan will cut $4.4 trillion over ten years. The President says his new plan will cut $4 trillion over twelve years.

Let’s get real. Ten or twelve-year budgets are baloney. It’s hard enough to forecast budgets a year or two into the future. Between now and 2022 or 2024 the economy will probably have gone through a recovery (I’ll explain later why I fear it will be anemic at best) and another downturn. America will also have been through a bunch of elections – at least five congressional and three presidential.

The practical question is how to get out of the ongoing gravitational pull of this awful recession without kowtowing to extremists on the right who think the U.S. government is their mortal enemy. For President Obama, it’s also about how to get reelected.