Knowledge is power.

You will hear a great deal about the President’s new budget, how it’s the largest ever with billions of pork barrel and class warfare hidden in the pages. First let me say that if this were a Bush budget it would only be a few billion because so much of the spending would be hidden “off budget”. This budget is, for the first time ever as far as I know, an accurate accounting of how much our government is spending. Both wars are represented. Interest on the debt is included. All the stuff that you never even knew the government was doing is included somewhere. There is much gnashing of teeth and fear mongering from the Loyal Opposition.

Why not read it yourself? A summary is on line at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/assets/fy2010_new_era/A_New_Era_of_Responsibility2.pdf. It’s a .pdf and it’s 142 pages long. If you read nothing else, read the first 40 pages (actually only about 30 pages when you leave out the “this page left intentionally blank”). It’s very conversational in style like a novel and designed to be user friendly for non-economic PhDs. The following 100 pages are a department-by-department disclosure of how each will be using your tax dollars, so if you want to see what HUD or Defense or Health and Human Services will be using your money for you can pick and choose.

If you want the down to the last $ billion on projected income vs outgo those line items are in the final pages.

No, it doesn’t detail each program by name. You won’t be able to find out how large a Pell Grant your particular child will be eligible for, but it should satisfy all but the most anal-retentive among us. For more than that you’ll have to go to the individual department websites.

Don’t take Rush Limbaugh’s word for it, or Ann Coulter’s. Don’t assume Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid is telling you the truth. It’s there for you to read. Down load it to disk and read or print it a few pages at a time.

Knowledge is power and for the first time in my memory you have as much power as you’re willing to work a little for.

looks much easier to read/comprehend.

thanks for the link. Now I only wish there were more specifics as to what will be done with health care. I'm ready, willing, and able to take any classes needed to learn how to fill in medical records electronically--but what program(s) will be used? And how in the world can we keep medical records private if they are all stored online? I work in a medical office (for a non-profit health education foundation), and I will be the one to do the work. Right now, we keep the Health History and Physical Exam of the initial visit plus the doctor's notes -- but all that is in Microsoft Word. The labs we use fax us results rather than emailing a pdf file. We use IBM type computers (some were donated) and not Apple. I'm sure other offices do it far differently. But there needs to be a standard and there needs to be security.