“Congress can advance elements of the budget without endorsing the entire proposal, which is likely to call for roughly $4 trillion in total spending, in line with Obama’s $3.99 trillion proposal for fiscal year 2016”. At left is Vice President Joe Biden. Certainly the Republican-controlled Congress has done nothing to solve those problems. House Speaker Paul Ryan dismissed the budget as “a progressive manual for growing the federal government at the expense of hardworking Americans”.
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The budget envisions a deficit of $503 billion in fiscal 2017 after a $616 billion budget gap in the current fiscal year ending on September 30.
In all, Obama’s budget would increase taxes by $2.6 trillion over the coming decade, almost double the $1.4 trillion in new taxes Obama sought and failed to achieve in last year’s budget. “It includes smart savings on healthcare, immigration, tax reform”, he said.
President Barack Obama is asking Congress for more than $1.8 billion in emergency funding to fight the Zika virus.
Although there is little chance that the budget will be passed in the Congress, there are some areas that the White House and the Congress can agree on, such as funding for cancer research and expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit to childless adults. Revenue proposals include a $10 tax per oil barrel and taxes on the wealthy.
“The president’s final budget continues his focus on new spending proposals instead of confronting our country’s massive overspending and skyrocketing $19 trillion in debt”, said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Mike Enzi.
Obama’s proposed tax increases also mean that he can present relatively reasonable deficit estimates without having to go for painful cuts to benefit programs such as Medicare, health care subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, food stamps, and Medicaid health care for the poor. Even before the budget was released, House and Senate Budget committees announced they would not invite the Office of Management and Budget director to review the president’s budget.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest accused the Republican lawmakers of “taking the Donald Trump approach to debates about the budget”, referring to the front-running Republican presidential candidate refusing to show up at one of his party’s candidate debates last month.
She says officials “want to do both of them and we are going to do both”. Republicans have already slammed the idea, saying it would raise the price of gas and hurt jobs.
Offsetting increases include highway and transit programs tracking the 2017 provisions of the recently approved FAST Act.
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In addition, it proposes a new fee on the liabilities of the largest banks that would raise $111 billion over 10 years and discourage excessive leverage in the financial system. The project’s first phase involves the reconstruction of the Lawrence, Argyle, Berwyn and Bryn Mawr “L” stops, improved track structure and viaducts and “the construction of a rail bypass north of Belmont station to increase rail capacity and alleviate train congestion”, according to Emanuel’s office.
