PRESIDENT Barack Obama sent Congress his eighth and final budget of his presidency on Tuesday, Feb. 9. The proposal includes a spending record of $4.1 trillion on a number of initiatives, from a new war on cancer to combating global warming to fighting growing threats from Islamic State militants.
“While it is important to take stock of our progress, this Budget is not about looking back at the road we have traveled. It is about looking forward and making sure our economy works for everybody, not just those at the top,” the President states in an emailed fact sheet on the 2017 fiscal year budget. “It is about choosing investments that not only make us stronger today, but also reflect the kind of country we aspire to be–the kind of country we want to pass on to our children and grandchildren.”
The proposed spending plan applies for the budget year that begins Oct. 1, just three-and-a-half months before he leaves office, according to the Associated Press. It addresses issues such as climate change, healthcare, opportunities for small businesses and students, as well as national and economic security.
Obama already faces heavy fire from the GOP-controlled Congress, which is not expected to approve the proposal, and has called it “dead on arrival.”
Overall, Obama’s budget would increase taxes by $2.6 trillion in the coming decade– nearly double the $1.4 trillion in new taxes Obama sought and failed to achieve in last year’s budget.
Congressional Republicans have already said they will ignore the proposal, rather than engage in another round of “fiscal brinksmanship” with the president, said the Washington Post.
“President Obama will leave office having never proposed a budget that balances — ever. This isn’t even a budget so much as it is a progressive manual for growing the federal government at the expense of hardworking Americans,” said House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis).
GOP lawmakers said Obama’s proposal to impose a $10-per-barrel tax on crude oil–in order to bring in an additional $319 billion in revenue–had “no chance of congressional approval.” The administration announced they would use the money to fund billions of dollars in alternative transportation programs as part of the president’s efforts to deal with global warming.
Ryan also pledged that House Republicans would produce a budget that does reach balance in coming weeks.
“In 2016, we will make it our goal to pass all 12 appropriation bills through regular order,” Ryan said back in December, laying out his plans for the year ahead. “This hasn’t been done since 1994–but it’s how Congress ought to operate so that we can better protect the taxpayer dollars and make our place the true representative body that it is.”
Even with the increased taxes, Obama’s budget projects sharply higher deficits in the near future, totaling $9.8 trillion over the next decade. Last summer, Obama’s baseline forecast a deficit of $8 trillion over the next decade.
Much of the deficit problem stems from the surge in spending on benefit programs like Social Security and Medicare, whose budgets are predicted to soar with the retirement of millions of baby boomers.
The budget sees the economy growing at a 2.6 percent rate this year, although administration officials noted that projection was finalized in November, before recent stock market slide. Inflation would remain low, registering a 1.5 percent gain this year.
Obama’s new budget projects a deficit for the current 2016 budget year of $616 billion, which is sharply higher than the latest forecast by the Congressional Budget Office (totaling $544 billion).
Republicans have long complained that Obama has failed to attack the chief cause of future deficits. Previous Obama budgets did propose such things as slowing the automatic inflation increase for Social Security. However, the President abandoned those proposals when it became clear that Republicans were opposed to his suggestions to raise taxes on the wealthy in order to benefit programs for the working poor.
On Tuesday, White House officials expressed their goal to obtain bipartisan support for a number of Obama’s initiatives, such as the effort to combat heroin and opioid addiction, fund a “moonshot” initiative to cure cancer, and expand tax credits for the working poor.
Other elements of his proposal include ideas to appeal to Democrats: increasing Pell Grants for college students from low-income backgrounds; bolster funds for the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission; funding the Treasury’s State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI); and renewing incentives for GOP-governed states to join the expanded Medicaid system, established under his landmark health care law.
Separately, Obama has also proposed $1.8 billion in emergency spending to combat the Zika virus, on top of the $1.1 trillion catchall spending bill that passed in December.
The budget also pledges to increase military spending to fight terrorist threats, and help make Americans safer. It includes increased support (around $19 billion) for cybersecurity, upgrading computers across government agencies in the wake of last year’s major federal hack, which compromised the personal information of 21 million Americans.
“The budget that we are releasing today reflects my priorities and the priorities I believe will help advance security and prosperity for America for many years to come,” Obama told reporters at the White House.
