Ten Things You Should Know About Obama's Plan (but probably don't)

The plan:
1. Makes a $634 billion down payment on fixing health care that will go a long way toward paying for a more efficient, more affordable health care system that covers every single American.3
2. Reduces taxes for 95% of working Americans. And if your family makes less than $250,000, your taxes won't go up one dime.4
3. Invests more than $100 billion in clean energy technology, creating millions of green jobs that can never be outsourced.5
4. Brings our troops home from Iraq on a firm timetable, finally bringing the war to a close—and freeing up almost ten billion dollars a month for domestic priorities.6
5. Reverses growing income inequality. The plan lets the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans expire and focuses on strengthening the middle class.7
6. Closes multi-billion-dollar tax loopholes for big oil companies. 8
7. Increases grants to help families pay for college—the largest increase ever.9
8. Halves the deficit by 2013. President Obama inherited a legacy of huge deficits and an economy in shambles, but his plan brings the deficit under control as soon as the economy begins to recover.10
9. Dramatically increases funding for the SEC and the CFTC—the agencies that police Wall Street.11
10. Tells it straight. For years, budgets have used accounting tricks to hide the real costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush tax cuts, and too many other programs. Obama's budget gets rid of the smokescreens and lays out what America's priorities are, what they cost, and how we're going to pay for them.12

Additional aspects of Obama's budget worth sharing:
1. Stops unnecessary government subsidies to big banks, health insurance companies and big agribusinesses.13,14,15
2. Expands access to early childhood education and improves schools by investing in programs that make sure every child has a qualified, strong teacher.16
3. Negotiates for better prescription drug prices using Medicaid's tremendous bargaining power.17
4. Expands access to family planning for low-income women.18
5. Caps the pollution that causes global warming, and makes polluters pay to support clean energy innovation.19

For sources, please go here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8237821

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Not only is another world possible, she is on her way.

On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.

~ Arundhati Roy