Obama unveils multi-trillion dollar spending plan

US PRESIDENT Barack Obama unveiled a multi-trillion dollar spending plan yesterday, pledging an intensified effort to combat high unemployment and asking Congress to quickly approve new job-creation efforts that would boost the deficit to a record-breaking $1.56 trillion (€1.12tn).

Obama’s new budget blueprint preaches the need to make tough choices to restrain run-away deficits, but not before attacking what the administration sees as the more immediate challenge of lifting the country out of a deep recession that has cost 7.2 million jobs over the past two years.

The result is a budget plan that would give the country trillion-dollar-plus deficits for three consecutive years.