Sampling of Democratic candidates’ spending proposals

February 24, 2008 at 12:00a.m.

Here are some of the spending proposals by the major Democratic presidential candidates:

HILLARY CLINTON

ANNUAL:

Universal health care: $110 billion

Retirement programs: $25 billion

Energy: $10 billion

Tuition assistance: $8 billion

Education: $5 billion

Science: $2.8 billion

Transportation/transit: $2.5 billion

Family/child care: $1.75 billion

Other spending, not limited to single year:

Energy: $50 billion

Foreclosure/housing assistance: $2 billion

BARACK OBAMA

ANNUAL:

Energy investment: $15 billion a year for 10 years

Middle-class tax relief: $85 billion

Universal health care: $65 billion

College tax credits/matching retirement savings: $26 billion

Pre- and grade-school education: $18 billion

Foreclosure prevention: $10 billion (one-time cost)

Additional mortgage revenue bonds: $10 billion (one-time cost)

National service plan: $3.5 billion

How they propose paying for some of this spending:

Rolling back some of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for families with annual incomes above $250,000.

Beginning to draw down the U.S. military presence in Iraq, costing on average $9 billion a month.

Taxing environmental polluters to pay for cleaner emissions efforts.

Obama proposes unspecified increases to corporate taxes and trying to tax profits made by U.S. corporations abroad.

To address Social Security solvency issues, Obama proposes lifting a cap on Social Security contributions, which aren’t collected on income above $102,000. This would change the system’s progressive nature, asking the rich to pay in sharply more than they’ll get back.

Clinton wouldn’t let the estate tax expire but would freeze it at 2009 levels.

Neither candidate says how he or she will pay to end the alternative minimum tax, which could ensnare 52 million taxpayers by 2018. Repealing it could cost the Treasury more than $2 trillion over 10 years.

Sources: Clinton and Obama campaign Web sites, campaign speeches