U.S. budget deficit to top record 1.56 trillion dollars in fiscal year 2010

U.S. President Barack Obama sent Congress a 3.83-trillion-dollar budget in fiscal year 2011 on Monday to boost the fragile economic recovery, with a record- breaking 1.56-trillion-dollar deficit in fiscal year 2010 ending in September.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

The budget shortfall in 2010 would equal an unsustainable 10.6 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), the basic measure of a country's overall economic output.

The White House said the 3.83 trillion dollars budget of 2011 is aimed at dealing with the aftermath of the financial, fiscal, housing and unemployment crises, and to lay the foundation of sustainable growth of the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />U.S. economy.

"This budget embodies the president's efforts to deal with all those situations," said Obama's communications director Dan Pfeiffer, who said the budget contained "tough choices" in a bid to curb spending.

In an effort to fight unemployment crisis, Obama proposed a 100 billion dollars jobs measure that would provide tax breaks to encourage businesses to boost hiring as well as increased government spending on infrastructure and energy projects. He called for fast congressional action to speed relief to millions left unemployed in the worst recession since the 1930s.

On the anti-recession front, Obama's new budget proposed extending the popular Making Work Pay middle-class tax breaks of 400 dollars per individual and 800 dollars per couple through 2011. They were due to expire after this year.

The budget also proposes making 250 dollars payments to Social Security recipients to bolster their finances in a year when they are not receiving the normal cost-of-living boost to their benefit checks because of low inflation. Obama will also seek a 25 billion dollars increase in payments to help recession-battered states.

The Department of Homeland Security would get an additional 734 million dollars to support the deployment of up to 1,000 advanced imaging airport screening machines and new baggage screening equipment to detect explosives. Those increases represented a response to the Christmas Day bombing attempt on an airliner landing in Detroit.

The president's budget seeks a 33 billion dollars increase in a supplemental appropriation this year for the military and 159.3 billion dollars in 2011 to support Obama's boost strategy to deal with the terrorist threat in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Aiming at the longer-run competitiveness, the Obama administration proposes to boost education spending.

The administration said it was proposing the largest funding increase in the history of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, a 3 billion dollars increase to 28 billion dollars plus an additional 1 billion dollars if Congress agrees to some major changes in the law.

The new budget would also provide an additional 1.35 billion dollars for the president's Race to the Top challenge, a federal grant program in which 40 states are competing for 4 billion dollars in education money included in last year's stimulus bill.