US President Barack Obama vowed Saturday to fight for his budget proposals that include investments in clean energy and healthcare as he faces a tough battle moving the measures through Congress. “I didn't come here to do the same thing we've been doing or to take small steps forward, I came to provide the sweeping change that this country demanded when it went to the polls in November,” Obama said in his weekly radio address. “That is the change this budget starts to make, and that is the change I'll be fighting for in the weeks ahead.” The audacious $3.55 trillion budget proposal that Obama rolled out Thursday bristles with economic reforms and spending on healthcare, climate change and education. The plan includes more than $600 billion over 10 years for a “down payment” on healthcare reform and a similar annual sum for defense, and encompasses Obama's drive to end the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. Obama is to fulfill a campaign pledge to raise taxes on Americans earning more than $250,000 a year from 35 percent to just under 40 percent, yielding some two trillion dollars over ten years.
