Tresury Secretary and Director OMB testified Tuesday to House committee.

What caught my eye is what Orszag shared on the budget that Obama's plan is to return to the pre-2001 tax rates for high-income families making more than $250,000 per year. In other words, the Clinton years.

From OMB website by Peter Orszag:

Notes on the Budget

Peter Orszag, Director

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009 at 11:29 am


I am testifying today before the House Budget Committee and wanted to share my notes on the budget.


Deficit $2 trillion higher for this year and next because of crisis we inherited.

The economic crisis we’ve inherited raises the deficit by roughly $2 trillion (for this year and next year combined). The crisis raises the deficit by:

• Adding more than $600 billion of deficit spending ($300 billion a year) because a weak economy reduces revenue and increases spending on automatic stabilizers (like unemployment insurance)

• Requiring $650 billion or more to stabilize financial markets (including placeholder):

o $171 billion for stock purchases in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
o $247 billion in federal costs for TARP
o $250 billion placeholder in case additional actions are necessary

• Creating the need for the $787 billion Recovery Act to jumpstart the economy
Deficit would be another $2 trillion higher over the next 10 years without our policies – and we wouldn’t have cleaner energy, better education, or more efficient health care
The deficit reduction comes from:

• Responsibly redeploying our military forces engaged in overseas contingency operations, as well as reforms that would allow us to get more for the money spent on defending the nation

• Returning fairness to the tax system by closing tax loopholes, eliminating subsidies for special interests, and returning to the pre-2001 tax rates for high-income families making more than $250,000 per year (over next ten years, these revenue enhancements would reduce deficits by roughly $1 trillion)

• Making government more efficient – for example, by eliminating unwarranted subsidies to middlemen on educational loans and reducing erroneous payments (these two steps would reduce deficits by almost $100 billion over next ten years)

Over the long term, health care is the key to our fiscal future – and the Budget proposes a $634 billion reserve fund to begin the process of reducing costs and improving quality.


Also, here is the Treasury Secretary's testimony:


03/03/2009
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner Written Testimony House Ways and Means Committee Hearing