Money talks

President Barack Obama unveiled today his plans for a $3 trillion-plus budget and as you might have guessed, the budget has set the stage for major political battles. Republicans criticized the budget as full of wasteful spending. But since the plan also includes big cuts for some programs, surely plenty of folks will be fighting to save some items in the months ahead.

Below are some highlights of Obama’s proposed budget. Click here for CNN’s complete story on the plan and let me know what you think.

*The Obama administration projects the deficit for fiscal year 2009 will reach $1.75 trillion, or 12.3 percent of U.S. gross domestic product. That’s a record in dollar terms and is the highest as a share of GDP since World War II.

* Despite this the administration has a goal of reducing the deficit in half by 2013 by doing things such as reducing tax cuts for the wealthy, making government more efficient, winding down the war, which will cut costs over time.

*Obama said his team has already identified $2 trillion in budget savings by scouring the federal budget.

*Tax cuts for the wealthy will expire as scheduled at the end of 2010. That will hit families making more than $250,000 a year.

* The plan allows for $75.5 billion in spending on Iraq and Afghanistan for the remainder of 2009, $130 billion in spending on Iraq and Afghanistan for fiscal year 2010 and $533.7 billion for for the Department of Defense.

* $46.7 billion in spending for fiscal year 2010 will go toward education.

*$26.3 billion in spending was projected for the Energy Department in fiscal year 2010.

*Obama is also proposing a $634 billion health care “reserve fund.” To fund it Obama will ask wealthy Americans to accept a tax increase and wealthy seniors to pay higher Medicare premiums. The reserve fund will be used in part to deal with the 46 million Americans without health insurance.