A SUMMARY OF WHAT’S IN THE MAJOR U.S. NEWSPAPERS / Obama Puts $3.6 Trillion Where His Mouth Is

By Daniel Politi

President Obama presented his budget and left no doubt that he was being serious when he promised change. The $3.55 trillion spending plan included broad goals and few details but outlined how Obama plans to finance more spending in health care, energy, and education while increasing taxes on the top 5 percent of taxpayers, the oil and gas industry, and hedge-fund managers, among others. In short: Bye-bye, Reaganomics. The 134-page budget “is unprecedented in size, breathtaking in scope and sure to have a major impact on millions of Americans,” declares USA Today. The Wall Street Journal notes that the spending plan “marks a significant change in nearly 30 years of governing philosophy.”

 

A SUMMARY OF WHAT’S IN THE MAJOR U.S. NEWSPAPERS / Obama Creates Health Care Piggy Bank

By Daniel Politi

Everybody leads with President Obama’s decision to put some money in a piggy bank. In the budget proposal that will be released today, Obama will announce that he wants to start his promised overhaul of America’s health care system by creating a $634 billion reserve fund over the next 10 years that will be paid for by increasing taxes on the wealthy and cutting government spending. At the center of the plan is a call to gradually reduce the value of itemized deductions that those in the highest tax brackets can take for things like mortgage interest and charitable contributions. Separately, Obama will also propose to extend his tax cuts for most Americans and pay for them with the revenue he would get from polluting industries. These two proposals, combined with Obama’s stated goal of rolling back some of the Bush administration’s tax cuts, add up to “a pronounced move to redistribute wealth by reimposing a larger share of the tax burden on corporations and the most affluent taxpayers,” declares the New York Times.

 

A SUMMARY OF WHAT’S IN THE MAJOR U.S. NEWSPAPERS / Between Hope and Fear

By Daniel Politi

President Obama told the American people last night that the country is in trouble, but he vowed that the United States would recover and emerge stronger than before. In his first address to a joint session of Congress (don’t call it a State of the Union), Obama gave a “sobering speech” but also “sought to spark optimism and confidence in his plan for recovery,” notes USA Today. The Wall Street Journal declares that Obama “straddled the divide between fear and hope” throughout his speech, and the New York Times describes it as a mixture of acknowledging the seriousness of the economic problems “with a Reaganesque exhortation to American resilience.” The Washington Post points out that Obama’s optimistic tone had “been absent from his speeches in recent weeks,” a fact that many, including former President Bill Clinton, had criticized. In what the Los Angeles Times calls “a significant departure from the George W. Bush years,” Obama barely mentioned foreign policy and focused squarely on the economy and other domestic priorities.

 

A SUMMARY OF WHAT’S IN THE MAJOR U.S. NEWSPAPERS / Inching Closer to Nationalization

By Daniel Politi

The New York Times leads with a look at how the Obama administration is facing “mounting pressure” to put more money into troubled companies that have already received billions from Uncle Sam. American International Group, the insurance giant, is now saying its $150 billion rescue won’t be enough and is asking for billions more. The requests, which have also come from two of Detroit’s Big Three and Citigroup, “reflect just how hard it is to stanch the flow of losses as the economy deteriorates.” The NYT also mentions, and the Washington Post devotes its lead story to, the White House making it clear that it’s willing to acquire a controlling ownership stake in troubled banks that can’t raise enough private capital. The move could “culminate with the government nationalizing some of the country’s largest banks,” declares the Post.

 

A SUMMARY OF WHAT’S IN THE MAJOR U.S. NEWSPAPERS / California Lives! (For Now)

By Daniel Politi 

The Los Angeles Times banners, while the Washington Post, New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal’s world-wide newsbox lead with, California lawmakers finally passing a budget after a three-month battle. Legislators spent almost two full days locked in the Capitol and finally got the two-thirds majority they needed to pass a budget that closes the state’s $42-billion deficit. But, as the LAT highlights, the fight isn’t over, as $5.8 billion in the budget depends on voters approving a series of ballot measures in a special election May 19. The NYT and WP say that the drama surrounding California’s budget is a preview of what could soon be seen in state capitals across the country. With an economy that’s larger than all but seven nations and a deficit that’s larger than the expenditure of all but 10 other states, California clearly has outsized problems. “But with 40 states operating in the red, similar days of reckoning will soon be coming to state capitals from Florida to Arizona,” notes the Post.

 

A SUMMARY OF WHAT’S IN THE MAJOR U.S. NEWSPAPERS / A Helping Hand for (Some) Homeowners

By Daniel Politi

The Washington Post, New York Times, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal’s world-wide newsbox all lead with President Obama’s new plan to help as many as 9 million struggling homeowners stay in their homes by helping them refinance their mortgages or prevent foreclosure. The WP calls it “the largest federal foreclosure-prevention package in decades.” The plan could cost as much as $275 billion, of which $75 billion will go to help up to 4 million homeowners prevent foreclosure; the rest will go toward doubling the government’s financial backing of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to $400 billion. Many of the plan’s details won’t be released until early March, but everyone notes that it “was more ambitious and expensive than many housing analysts had expected,” as the NYT puts it. Still, many cautioned that it won’t end the foreclosure crisis, and millions of homeowners won’t be eligible to receive help.