Other proposals are more costly. Obama wants to extend health insurance to more people (part of a $65-billion-a-year health plan), develop cleaner energy sources ($15 billion a year), curb home foreclosures ($10 billion in one-time spending) and add $18 billion a year to education spending.
It is a far different blueprint than McCain is offering. The senator from Arizona has proposed relatively little new spending, arguing that tax cuts and private business are more effective means of solving problems.
The total price tag of Obama's plans, according to his campaign, is $130 billion a year. On top of that, Obama is proposing a middle-class tax cut of about $80 billion a year.
Obama's campaign says the new spending would be more than offset by cuts to existing federal programs and other savings.
"His plan reallocates what we're spending today on the war in Iraq and wasteful and low-priority government programs into higher-priority investments in our future," said Jason Furman, Obama's economic policy director.
Some budget experts point to the last Democratic presidency, Bill Clinton's, as an example of the budget pressures Obama might face.
Clinton campaigned in 1992 on a platform he called "Putting People First," which included government spending on job training and other programs to help middle-class Americans navigate the economy. But after his election, Clinton scaled back his ambitions and made deficit-cutting a priority instead, following the counsel of advisors such as Robert E. Rubin.
Clinton wound up charting a centrist course in his two terms, and declared in 1996 that "the era of big government is over."
Rubin is now an advisor to Obama. One of the men who also wanted Clinton to cut the deficit first was Leon E. Panetta, who eventually became Clinton's chief of staff.
Panetta predicts that Obama is in for a similar reckoning.
"I accept that all candidates throw out a lot of proposals when they're campaigning," Panetta said in an interview. "You have to assume that's all part of a campaign strategy to appeal to a lot of different constituencies that are out there. But once he enters the Oval Office, he's going to have to make some hard decisions."
Obama's staff thinks that ending the Iraq war would free up money -- at least $90 billion a year -- that could be redirected to the new government programs. But it is unclear when that would occur. Obama has not given a clear date by which the Iraq war might end. On Thursday, he said he remained committed to withdrawing combat troops in 16 months. At a debate in September, he would not commit to pulling all U.S. troops out of Iraq by 2013.
