The New York Times said in editorials for Tuesday, Feb. 2: OBAMA'S NEW BUDGET President Barack Obama got his priorities mostly right in the new $3.8 trillion budget for the fiscal year 2011. It calls for increased spending on education and clean energy technology, shows restraint on the defense budget, and, most importantly, calls for more spending on job creation. It also rightly lets the Bush-era tax cuts for high-income Americans expire as scheduled at the end of 2010. When all the new spending and spending cuts are added in, and various tax increases and tax cuts are accounted for, the increase in the deficit, compared with what it would have been without any changes, is $120 billion. That is a lot of money. But it is not too much at a time of economic weakness, when deficit spending is needed to boost growth and put Americans back to work. Still, if you're feeling sticker shock, we are, too. It is important to remember that most of that $3.8 trillion, nearly $2.4 trillion, is for mandatory spending -- on programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and for interest on the national debt. Medicare and Medicaid alone will cost $788 billion; that should be another reminder of why the country needs health care reform. Congress also cannot waste any more time posturing about the deficit rather than doing what is needed to get Americans back to work. In his budget, Obama has called for $100 billion in sound new job-creating measures, including tax credits for hiring and new investments in green jobs and infrastructure projects. The budget also proposes spending $166 billion for other job-related initiatives, including nearly $50 billion to extend federal unemployment benefits this year. Millions of families need those benefits to meet their basic needs. And without their spending, more American businesses would face hardship, leading to more layoffs and ever higher unemployment. The House passed a $154 billion jobs bill late last year that incorporates some of the president's ideas. In the Senate, all of the Republicans and a handful of Democrats have balked, insisting that they are far more concerned about adding to the deficit. That is a false and dangerous economy. No one can be happy about the $1.3 trillion deficit projected for 2011. Still Obama's budget calls for steps to begin to chip away at it. The budget rightly calls on the country's high-income earners and wealthy corporations -- the big energy companies and the banks, all cosseted during the Bush years -- to carry more of the burden. Letting the Bush-era tax cuts on the rich expire at the end of this year would bring in nearly $700 billion over a decade. A fee on big banks would raise $90 billion in that time, and an elimination of some subsidies for large energy companies would raise another $40 billion. Obama is right that the recovery is too fragile to make deep cuts in government spending. But his proposal to freeze non-security discretionary spending, starting next year, is a credible commitment to find more serious savings once the economy rebounds. The fact is, there is not enough money in any of the discretionary accounts to wrestle the deficit under control. For that, the nation needs health care reform and tax reform, including new sources of tax revenue. The alternative to spending more today on job creation is a prolonged downturn, or worse, renewed recession -- which would only force deficits higher. In the medium and long-term, the country must deal with the deficit and the structural problems that threaten everyone's economic future. Obama's budget is a step in the right direction for both problems. Now he must press Congress to do its part. THE NOT-SO-SAFE EURO ZONE The euro is facing the most serious crisis in its 11-year history. Greece, one of 16 European Union members that use the currency, must raise $76 billion this year -- more than $50 billion of it before June 30 -- or default. A default would threaten the euro's global credibility, scare investors away from other struggling European economies and likely reverse Europe's fragile recovery. Despite those very real dangers, Europe's richer nations -- most loudly Germany -- have been acting as if this is someone else's problem. Last week, the French newspaper Le Monde reported that Germany and France had begun contingency planning for possible financial assistance. Both governments denied it. We hope the report turns out to be true. Failing to develop a plan to step in if needed would be incredibly shortsighted. The euro is wondrously convenient for travelers and international businesses. There's one catch: Fiscal discipline is up to each participating country, and Greece has been anything but disciplined. It is running a deficit of nearly 13 percent of total output, more than four times the nominal limit for countries using the euro. Its national debt is almost double the permitted limit. With its credit rating sharply downgraded, Greece must pay a stiff premium to finance that deficit. The economic fortunes of all the euro-using countries are too tightly linked to contain the crisis to one of them. And Greece may not be alone for long. Similar financing crises could soon hit Ireland, Spain and Portugal. Market anxieties threaten the currencies of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. For years, Greece fiddled its figures. In flusher times, too few questions were asked. Now the truth, and its consequences, must be faced: Corruption and tax evasion hobble the Greek economy. Millions work off the books. The private sector generates too few jobs and tax revenues, and one in four Greeks works for the state. It is a system designed to produce deficits. The new Socialist government promises to cut the deficit to less than 3 percent within three years -- and without outside help -- by slashing public spending, improving tax collection and reforming the nearly bankrupt pension system. Those are necessary steps. But foreign investors are rightly skeptical that Greece can achieve the magnitude of savings required at a time of recession and rising social and labor unrest. Nor should the entire burden fall on Greece -- one of the European Union's smaller and poorer economies. Any bailout must be accompanied by greater restraints on the fiscal sovereignty that Athens so egregiously abused. Letting Greece fail would be a disaster for all of Europe. A VERDICT AGAINST VIGILANTISM On Friday, a Kansas jury convicted an anti-abortion extremist of first-degree murder for the shooting death of a Wichita abortion provider, Dr. George Tiller. It was a just verdict, but it was not only the judgment of guilt that mattered in this case. The trial sends an important message upholding the rule of law. It was never in doubt that Scott Roeder shot Tiller, who was gunned down in the foyer of his church as he handed out bulletins on Sunday, May 31. Indeed, Roeder admitted it in court. What was in doubt was how the jury would react to the defense's attempts to portray the killer as somehow less culpable because of his fevered opposition to abortion and his outrage that abortion rights are constitutionally protected in this country. The fact that the jury convicted Roeder after deliberating just 37 minutes was a stunning rejection of that argument. The verdict's clear-eyed response to an ugly act of vigilantism should be welcomed on both sides of the political divide over abortion rights. When people turn to violence to further their political or moral beliefs, it amounts to an attack on our whole democracy and civil society. The state judge in the trial, Warren Wilbert, also deserves credit for refusing to allow the jury to consider convicting Roeder for the lesser crime of manslaughter based on his opposition to abortion. Political beliefs, no matter how sincerely held, do not lessen accountability for murder. GRAPPLING WITH PYTHONS The Internet is full of ads: 'clean, smooth, hypoallergenic' is the pitch for boa constrictors on one breeder's site. Other snakes can be delivered to your home the next day. The problem is that owners often tire of these living conversation pieces. Some snakes, like the Burmese python, can grow to more than 20 feet long and weigh 200 pounds. And their preferred diet runs to live animals instead of little pellets from the pet store. So far too many owners do the worst thing possible for the environment: they let these animals loose. Florida's fragile Everglades are of particular concern. Over the last decade, more than 1,300 Burmese pythons and other constrictors have been removed from the Everglades. And the rule of thumb is that for every one you can see (and their markings make them very hard to see), there are another 1,000 out there. With no natural predators, these eating machines are stripping the delicate ecosystem of birds, mammals and fish. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar recently announced plans to ban the import or interstate transport of nine snakes that are not native to the United States: Burmese and three other pythons, boa constrictors and four different types of anaconda. Over the last 30 years, about a million of these snakes have been imported into the United States, according to federal wildlife officials, and domestic snake breeders are believed to have added another million, at least, to the constrictor population. The import and transport ban is a good start. As with other invasive species, like Asian carp or zebra mussels, it is much more difficult to get rid of these pests once they have arrived. Florida's wildlife officials are allowing snake-hunting this spring in state areas -- permits come with advice about how the skins make lovely boots and wallets. This sounds like a good, if temporary, fix -- python hunting for fun, profit and preservation of the Everglades. CORRECTION An editorial on Jan. 31 about where to try the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks inaccurately described the history of military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. There were two convictions in 2008. An editorial on the death of Charles 'Mac' Mathias on Jan. 27 misspelled the name of a Republican representative from Ohio who helped pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He was William McCulloch, not McCullough. 