AGRICULTURE
$26 Billion — up 6% (from 2009)
The Agriculture Department budget calls for initiatives that President Obama talked about during his campaign, including increasing aid to rural areas and reining in federal funding for corporate farmers and large crop insurance companies.The budget calls for spending $1.3billion in loans and grants to increase broadband capacity in rural communities and would put $70 million toward competitive research grants that would, among other things, fund professional development for teachers in rural areas.
The budget would also phase out direct payments to farmers with gross annual sales of more than $500,000. It would limit the amount of federal money that commodity farmers receive when, for example, prices fall below expected market rates. Obama also addressed his campaign pledge to help end childhood hunger by 2015 by adding $1 billion to food and nutrition programs.
 DEFENSE
$664 Billion — up 1%
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said he would have to “make some hard choices” as a result of the proposed Pentagon budget, and he reiterated that the spigot of defense spending that opened after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks is closing.
Still, Gates said that given the economic crisis, he had expected the budget to grow only at the pace of inflation and that instead, “we’ve ^ We’ve done somewhat better than that.”
Gates said the “constrained economic environment” led to the request for a 2.9 percent pay increase for troops, compared with the 3.5 percent boost requested last year.
The estimated war budget is $130 billion, lower than the $144 billion requested for 2009. The new war supplemental would shift some routine defense expenditures — such as the cost of growing the Army and the Marine Corps, care for the wounded, and technology to defeat roadside bombs — into the Pentagon base budget.
 HOMELAND SECURITY
$43 Billion — up 6%
The Department of Homeland Security’s budget includes few new initiatives and would barely increase under Obama’s proposal, though some big-ticket items were funded by the recently passed stimulus package.
DHS is the only Cabinet department whose discretionary funds are forecast to drop annually after this year through 2014. The loss is supposed to be offset by phasing in a per-ticket airline passenger security fee after 2012, a proposal that Congress has repeatedly killed.
Obama included $368 million to sustain the Border Patrol at a planned 20,000 agents and carve out more money, $1.4 billion, for Immigration and Customs Enforcement programs to deport illegal immigrants who commit crimes.
 HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT
$48 Billion — up 18%
The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s budget would set aside $4.5billion for a 35-year-old block grant program designed to help rehabilitate housing and invest in the economic development of primarily low-income neighborhoods.
Obama also requested $1 billion for a housing trust fund that aims to help the poor buy and rent homes.
A voucher program that enables 2 million families a year to rent in neighborhoods of their choice would receive more funding, as would the owners of 1.3 million affordable rental units who need money to maintain their buildings.
The proposal also would fund efforts to combat mortgage fraud, enforce fair-housing rules, encourage energy efficiency, and redevelop public and assisted housing.
 LABOR
$13 billion — up 5%
The Labor Department would update unemployment insurance, toughen workplace safety and wage enforcement, create new retirement incentives for low-wage workers and step up job training under the budget submitted by the Obama administration.
Some of the new money would fund changes in unemployment insurance that would make extended benefits available more quickly to workers who have been out of a job for longer than six months. The spending plan also envisions a stronger effort to police overpayment of unemployment benefits, a problem that the administration said cost $3.9billion last year. The budget increase also would enhance job training programs aimed at helping low-wage workers and ex-offenders acquire marketable skills.
The administration wants employers to automatically enroll workers in direct-deposit individual retirement accounts in an effort to reduce the number — estimated to be half the workforce — who lack retirement plans to supplement Social Security. The proposal also would provide a 50 percent match for the first $1,000 of retirement savings set aside by families earning less than $65,000 a year.
 HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
$77 Billion — down 2%
Obama is attempting to use his budget to begin restructuring the U.S. health-care system. The blueprint would create a 10-year, $634 billion reserve fund to expand health insurance, improve the quality of care and modernize the system.
About half the money would come through health spending reductions and changes that would affect drugmakers, hospitals and managed-care providers.
Most of the Health and Human Services budget comprises two mandatory programs: Medicare, at $453 billion next year, and Medicaid, at $290 billion.
In addition, the economic stimulus act pumps $22.4 billion into federal health programs over the next two years.
For the first time, the budget would dedicate money — $211 million — to autism research. It also would allocate about $5 million a year to family planning efforts through Medicaid.
Obama is proposing a major policy change through the Food and Drug Administration: allowing Americans to buy prescription drugs from other countries.
 ENERGY
$26 Billion — down less than 1%
The Obama administration plans to abandon a controversial and long-deadlocked plan to bury nuclear waste in Nevada’s Yucca Mountain.
In its budget outline, the administration also tipped its hand on a cap-and-trade proposal for limiting greenhouse gas emissions, forecasting $78.7 billion in revenue beginning in fiscal 2012 and $645.7 billion over the next 10 years.
Of that revenue, $15 billion a year would be set aside for “clean energy technologies,” and the rest would be devoted to expanding the earned-income tax credit for low- and middle-income workers under a program called Making Work Pay.
The budget plan underlines the surge in Energy Department spending in the stimulus package. The stimulus act pumps $38.7 billion for renewable energy into the department, nearly 11/2 times the department’s entire previous annual budget. In addition, the department has an unused $7.5 billion appropriation to give out $25billion in loans to companies devising advanced vehicle technologies.
But the budget outline envisions the surge in Energy Department spending as a one-time event. The request for non-stimulus spending by the department would drop to previous levels in fiscal 2010 and 2011.
 EDUCATION
$47 Billion — up 1%
Obama is seeking to expand federal funding for preschool, create new performance pay programs in public schools and dramatically revamp financial aid for college students.
The plan reflects his ambition for the United States to claim the world’s largest share of college graduates by 2020. It would support the creation of Promise Neighborhoods, in which schools and community organizations would collaborate to provide broad support to families and children in high-poverty areas. It would also set aside $2.5 billion for new grants to help low-income students complete college.
The budget would end the federally guaranteed student loan program, which provides subsidies to private lenders. Instead, the loans would be issued directly by the government, a change the administration estimates would save about $4 billion a year. The budget would increase Pell grants for the neediest college students to a maximum of $5,550 and seek to establish a secure funding stream for the program, linking the top award to inflation.
In public schools, the plan would fund efforts to improve teacher training, design better tests and improve struggling schools.
 ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
11 Billion — up 35%
The nearly $3 billion boost proposed for the Environmental Protection Agency highlights the revitalized role the agency will play under a Democratic president.
The budget — the largest in the EPA’s nearly 40-year history — includes a $19million increase for the government’s greenhouse gas emissions inventory and other activities that produce data to guide a climate-change bill, something Obama has identified as one of his top legislative priorities.
The budget also allocates $3.9 billion for 1,000 clean-water and 700 drinking-water projects. And it proposes reinstating the Superfund excise taxes that expired more than a decade ago, a move that would generate more than $1 billion a year to help clean up some of the country’s most toxic sites.
 STATE
$52 billion up 10%
Putting dollars behind Obama’s commitment to promote diplomacy and development overseas, the budget proposes a 40 percent increase in funding for the State Department and foreign aid programs, going from $36.7 billion in the 2009 fiscal year to $51.7 billion in 2010. Funding would almost double over five years, reaching $69.3 billion in 2014.
State was usually one of the few agencies to see an increase in funding during the Bush years, largely because of a dramatic expansion in foreign aid, but Obama proposes to go even further. The budget document says the plan will put the United States on a path to double foreign assistance. The Obama administration in particular will further expand the funding to thwart AIDS and malaria that Bush initiated, and will boost non-military assistance to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Beyond foreign aid, the budget also will launch a multi-year effort to increase the number of foreign service officers at the State Department and also will seek to bolster staffing at the Agency for International Development, which was cut during the Bush years.
Reflecting Obama’s personal interest in preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, the budget also will expand funding for nonproliferation and counterproliferation programs.
 VETERANS AFFAIRS
$56 Billion — up 11%
Obama proposed an 11 percent increase in the Department of Veterans Affairs budget, following through on a campaign pledge to expand veterans’ access to health care.
The proposed budget would expand eligibility for VA health care to non-disabled veterans earning modest incomes. The plan is estimated to bring more than 500,000 underserved veterans into the system by 2013, although veterans advocates say about 1.8 million veterans currently lack health insurance.
The budget would provide additional funding for programs that help returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries. Other extra funding would help upgrade the VA information technology system to enhance electronic medical records and more quickly process disability claims; expand services to homeless veterans; and better implement the new GI bill.
The administration budgeted about $1 billion more to VA than even veterans advocacy groups wanted.
 INTERIOR
$12 Billion — up 6%
The Interior Department budget would direct more money to renewable energy and parks.
The plan includes more than $50million to promote renewable energy projects on federal land and water. It also would provide more than $130million in additional funding to address the impact of climate change.
The budget includes $100million for the National Park Service, along with $25million to leverage private donations for park projects. Interior’s budget is notable for how it envisions the raising of about $31.5billion over 10 years — by cutting federal subsidies to oil and gas companies and by imposing an excise tax to compensate for oil revenue the government did not collect in the 1990s.
 TRANSPORTATION
$73 Billion — up 3%
The Transportation Department budget includes new money for high-speed rail and air traffic control systems, reflecting Obama’s emphasis on alternatives to highways.
The proposal includes the first installment in a five-year, $5 billion program of grants to states for construction of high-speed rail networks. The money would come on top of $8 billion in the economic stimulus package that is also dedicated to high-speed and intercity rail projects, which have gained little traction in the United States.
The administration says the money “marks a new federal commitment to give the traveling public a practical and environmentally sustainable alternative to flying or driving.”
The budget also includes $800 million for improvements to the nation’s antiquated air traffic control system, including upgrading from ground-based radar to satellites, and an additional $55 million for subsidies maintaining air service to rural communities.
The administration said it would explore options such as “road pricing,” which allows cities to levy fees to limit traffic at peak times.
 TREASURY
A $600 million increase in the Treasury Department’s budget would beef up management of the financial rescue package, efforts to collect delinquent taxes and help for underserved neighborhoods.
The budget proposal also accounts for the cost of a request for more rescue funds for the financial system.
The administration plans for a $250 billion loss on such an initiative, calling it a “contingent reserve” that would be spent only if the administration asks for more aid for the financial system.
“As events warrant, the administration will work with the Congress to determine the appropriate size and shape of such efforts, and as more information becomes available the administration will define an estimate of potential costs,” the budget plan said.
The Treasury would use its additional funds to hire professional financiers to help with the agency’s financial stability plan and to increase oversight of the program. It also will boost enforcement at the Internal Revenue Service to collect unpaid taxes, which are estimated at about $300 billion every year.
Finally, the Treasury plans to double funding for its Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, which helps lenders in local communities provide loans to small businesses and consumers in underserved neighborhoods.
 JUSTICE
$27 Billion — up 4%
The budget represents the first glimpse at how the Obama administration will seek to reorient the Justice Department, whose resources and attention have been devoted for years to counterterrorism, sometimes at the expense of street-level law enforcement.
National security remains the president’s “highest priority,” and his budget would allot $8 billion for the FBI and $88 million for the Justice Department’s National Security Division^ national security division, which prosecutes alleged terrorists and collects intelligence to defuse threats.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has emphasized a renewed commitment to civil rights and battling business fraud, and the budget would give prosecutors $145 million to strengthen the enforcement of laws barring racial, religious and gender discrimination.
Officials also would have $6 billion for the Bureau of Prisons and $109 million to create programs to help inmates transition out of prison and into jobs and drug-free lifestyles.
The budget would provide a separate pool of money to begin to hire 50,000 more police officers nationwide.
 COMMERCE
$13.8 Billion — 48%
Almost all of the new money — $4 billion — in the Commerce Department budget would go toward completing the 2010 Census.
The administration expects the widespread data-collection effort to require the hiring of half a million people. The proposal is on top of $1billion allocated under the stimulus package.
Obama is requesting $1.3billion for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to improve weather prediction and monitoring, as well as sustainable management of ocean resources and marine fisheries.
The Economic Development Administration would receive $100million for regional planning and matching grants and for a new network of incubators to encourage entrepreneurship in economically distressed areas.
 NASA
$19 Billion — up 5%
NASA would maintain its back-to-the-moon trajectory with a little extra funding in its tank under its proposed budget.
The new money would keep intact the plan, proposed by President George W. Bush and authorized by Congress, to return astronauts to the moon by 2020. The budget also calls for a robust program of unmanned space exploration, and a “global climate change research and monitoring system.”
But the money would not be nearly enough to close a looming gap in NASA’s ability to put astronauts in orbit. The agency plans to shut down the space shuttle program at the end of 2010, and President Obama’s budget sticks to that schedule. The constellation program, with its new rockets and new capsule for taking astronauts into orbit and to the moon, will not be ready until about 2015. In the meantime, the United States will depend on Russia for rides to the international space station.
Producers: Ethan Klapper, Sarah Lovenheim, John Amick, Emily Kotecki; Editor: Paul Volpe; Designer: Sarah Sampsel / washingtonpost.com
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