Highlights of Obama's proposed fiscal 2010 budget

WASHINGTON – Here are some highlights of the $3.55 trillion fiscal 2010 budget, which President Barack Obama proposed on Thursday. It:

n Projects a total deficit for the current fiscal year, 2009, of $1.75 trillion – 12.3 percent of the gross domestic product. The previous post-World War II record deficit was 6 percent of GDP in fiscal 1983, considered dangerously high at the time.

n Projects annual deficits falling to 8 percent of GDP in 2010 and to 3 percent by 2013, a level it would roughly maintain through 2019.

n Would raise taxes on households making more than $250,000 a year by $955 billion over 10 years.

n Would create a cap-and-trade auction program to tax carbon emissions and reduce greenhouse gases that would raise $645.7 billion over 8 years. It would spend $120 billion of that on clean energy technologies and the rest to fund tax cuts for households making less than $140,000 a year.

n Would set aside a $634 billion reserve fund over 10 years to begin financing a national health-care program. It would pay for that fund by reducing Medicare “overpayments” to private insurers; reducing Medicaid drug rebates to manufacturers; and reducing the tax break for deductions taken by households with annual income over $250,000.

n Lists a $250 billion reserve fund as a placeholder estimate to support $750 billion in new spending to rescue banks. This would be in addition to the $700 billion bank-rescue fund that was approved last fall.

n Would make permanent the $400 per person, $800 per family “Making Work Pay” tax credit, which was included in the recent $787 billion stimulus program. Would offset with funds from the carbon tax.

n Lays the groundwork to create a future system of automatic workplace pensions in addition to Social Security. Employers would be required to enroll employees in a direct-deposit IRA.

n Would expand many spending programs in the recent stimulus plan that aim to conserve energy and modernize the electricity grid.

n Would expand many spending programs on education that were included in the recent stimulus plan.

n Would create a $1 billion a year high-speed rail state grant program in addition to the $8 billion program created in the $787 billion stimulus plan. States sharing the goal of creating new high-speed rail lines include Illinois California, Washington, Texas, Mississippi, Florida, Missouri, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.