The Obama Administration releases its budget proposal today, which means policy wonks like me will be busy reading spreadsheets, examining graphs, and talking to experts about what the president is proposing.
No, the budget won’t become the blueprint for congressional spending. But it will reveal a great deal about the priorities that Obama will defend during the campaign and, if re-elected, attempt to defend in its second term. In addition, as Ezra Klein points out today at Wonkblog, this budget will reveal for the first time how the administration proposes to allocate spending cuts that last summer’s debt ceiling deal require.
This much we know already: The administration is not backing off its proposals to strengthen the economy. Obama’s jobs proposals didn’t make it through Congress, but he’s put them into his budget. And that is altogether appropriate. The recent good news on the economy hasn’t been that good: With unemployment above 8 percent, way too many people are out of work. And that rate isn’t coming down quickly enough.
One person who understands those numbers, and what they mean, is Bruce Sprinsgteen. He’s just released a video for “We Take Care of Our Own,” the first single from his new album, “Wrecking Ball.” The album, according to a source who spoke to Hollywood Reporter, is Springsteen’s “angriest” and “gets into economic justice quite a bit.”
Lyrics from the new song suggest those reports are accurate:
Where are the eyes, the eyes with the will to see?
Where are the hearts that run over with mercy?
Where’s the love that has not forsaken me?
Where’s the work that set my hands, my soul free?
Where’s the spirits that will reign reign over me?
Where’s the promise from sea to shining sea?
The video is above, for those of you bored while I’m reading the latest from OMB.
h/t Alyssa Rosenberg