This, You Call Austerity?

Today, in his press conference, President Obama said government "has to live within its means." The budget he just proposed adds $1.67 Trillion to the national debt, over $300 billion more than last year.

This, he calls "living within our means":

• In 2007, the Department of Transportation had one employee who made over $170,000 per year. By the end of 2009 that number had grown to over 1,690. The new budget proposal for the coming year projects an increase in the DOT budget of 68% to over $168 billion. It includes over $53 billion for "high-speed rail."
• $500 million to restructure the new Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, which was formed after the April spill in the Gulf of Mexico. This is a brand new bureaucratic regulatory agency.
• A 14% increase in the Department of Commerce which includes the National Institute of Standards and Technology laboratories, which have helped develop image processing, smoke detectors and pollution-control technology, would receive $764 million under the plan, an increase of more than $100 million.
• A 38.5% increase in the Department of Education, which includes "$4.3 billion to improve teacher quality."

Read many more details about this "austere" budget here.