I suppose “Change” could have meant we curtail spending on Education, Health Care, Green Energy, the Military, Infrastructure, etc. and I see the lure of cutting back. Why is it the general public encouraged to live within their means, but the government doesn’t have to? The real issue is not how much we spend, it’s how we spend it.

The Recovery and Reinvestment Act, while enormously expensive, is designed to set us up for future economic growth and prosperity. It’s like taking out a loan to open a new business or retool a factory. If the business plan is sound and the money well spent, it will pay for itself in the end.

Already this week thousands of new jobs are getting started and the number will increase in the months to come. These projects, if administered wisely, will better prepare the nation for the challenges of the next decade and beyond.

From Mike Madden at Salon

This is not George Bush’s budget

Budgets are about priorities, not numbers, and President Obama’s first budget marks a sea change from the past eight years.
By Mike Madden
Feb. 27, 2009 |

“Elections have consequences” is one of those political clichés that gets thrown around a lot in this city, especially in the first few months of a new administration. But
President Obama’s $3.5 trillion budget proposal, released Thursday, actually reminds you that clichés become clichés for a reason: They’re true.

The 142page proposal laid out a sweeping, ambitious agenda for the future: Obama would raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for healthcare for the uninsured? cap pollution emissions? put billions more dollars into infrastructure and new technology, building on the money in the massive economic stimulus program Obama already pushed through Congress? invest in new education programs? and roll back the U.S. troop presence in Iraq and, more slowly, Afghanistan. There were proposals to save money by modernizing the healthcare system, only paying for treatments that are proven to work, and by eliminating federal farm subsidies to the biggest and wealthiest recipients, mostly agribusiness interests. This is not, in other words, George W. Bush’s budget.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/02/27/obama_budget/index.html