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President Obama released his 2012 budget proposal today, pledging to trim $1.1 trillion from record federal deficits over the next decade. Two thirds of the president’s proposal will come in the form of a five year freeze on domestic spending, with the remaining third being generated from tax increases. Not only are there social programs, which are dear to the president and his administration, on the chopping block, but also the previously untouchable budget of the Pentagon, coming in the form of a $78 billion proposal by Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Obama’s 2012 fiscal budget blueprint preempts the Republicans’ budget, which is also due out this week and will seek to cut the Democrats five-year freeze period immediately. Republicans, keeping one eye fixed on the Tea Party, have vowed to cut more and faster. In addition to the $61 billion in cuts over the next seven months, Republicans have joined the president in recently targeting the government’s ability to regulate industry—including those sectors responsible for the Great Recession of 2008 and the BP oil spill of 2010.

GUESTS: Robert Weisman, President of Public Citizen, former director of the corporate accountability organization Essential Action, and former editor of the Multinational Monitor, a magazine that tracks corporate actors worldwide,
Dave Levinthal is Communications Director at the Center for Responsive Politics. He directs the Center’s original journalism and blogging, and serves as its spokesman

Find out more at www.citizen.org and www.opensecrets.org.