国际英语新闻：Obama budget projects $1.75 trillion deficit in 2009

WASHINGTON, Feb. 26 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday sent to Congress a budget that projects the deficit for this year will soar to 1.75 trillion U.S. dollars, reflecting massive spending to pull the nation out of recession.

    The budget overview will call for nearly 4 trillion dollars in spending in fiscal year 2010 beginning Oct. 1, and leaves open the possibility that Obama will need an additional 750 billion dollars in bailout money.

    The budget will also set aside a 634-billion-dollar "reserve fund" as a down payment to cover roughly two-thirds of the anticipated 10-year cost of universal health care coverage -- projected at 1 trillion dollars.

    The huge deficit figure would represent 12.3 percent of the U.S. economy, making it the largest share since World War II.

    The deficit totaled 455 billion dollars in 2008, which was an all-time high in dollar terms.

    "In keeping with my commitment to make our government more open and transparent, this budget is an honest accounting of where we are and where we intend to go," said Obama on Thursday morning before releasing the budget.

    "This is a very significant down payment," a senior administration official also told FOX News. "We consider putting this reserve fund on the table a more auspicious approach to getting this done this year."

    "They've painted the worst-case scenario in order to make it as easy as possible to improve on," said Maya MacGuineas, president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which champions deficit reduction.

    "This budget is more realistic than we've seen in the past, in that it actually includes all the policies the administration is supporting. But I'd like to see them go much further in terms of fiscal responsibility in actually closing that deficit gap," he added.

    The Democrats also welcomed the massive budget. "It's a bold plan. This is big strokes. This is not a budget about little things," Rep. Chris Van Hollen, a member of the House leadership, was quoted as saying by the Washington Post.

    "The president knows there are a lot of big lifts in this budget. But in order to turn the economy around and lay the foundation for long-term prosperity, we have to make these tough decisions," said Hollen.

    However, the Republicans attacked the bill as too costly. "It's a hollow number," said Sen. Judd Gregg, the senior Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, who recently withdrew as Obama's nominee to head the Commerce Department.

    "You're not getting savings if you're assuming spending that isn't actually going to occur," he said.

    Obama also acknowledged the criticism. He also expected the deficit to decline steadily in the coming fiscal year, reaching 533 billion by 2013, so as to fulfill his promise to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term.

    The president, who inherited an over-1-trillion-dollar deficit when he took office, also warned that there are "some hard choices that lie ahead" due to the current economic crisis.