Obama proposes $4.1 trillion budget, tax hikes for middle class

GOP lawmakers said the president’s proposal would not be approved by Congress. “President Obama will leave office having never proposed a budget that balances – ever”, said House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., in a statement released shortly after the budget was made public. 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.

As with many of his initiatives during his final year in office, Obama’s budget is in part an attempt to solidify his legacy and influence the debate in the 2016 presidential campaign.

“A $10 tax on every barrel of oil would cripple Alaska’s economy, which is already reeling from low oil prices”, the Alaska Republican said in a statement.

It calls for 320 billion US dollars to promote clean transportation infrastructure, and another 11 billion dollars for clean energy. The Defense budget includes the beginning of a $40 billion, five-year program to improve underwater, anti-submarine defenses aimed at potential threats by Russian Federation and China.

Obama’s $4.15 trillion budget would make a host of new investments, but also reduce debt as a percent of the economy over 10 years, according to White House estimates.

In a sign of how bad relations are between the president and Congress, Rep. Price and his Senate counterpart Mike Enzi did not invite the administration’s budget director to testify before their committees.

BARACK OBAMA: It adheres to last year’s bipartisan budget agreement.

In his budget message, Obama described his proposal as a major investment in the future – one that would provide more assistance to the middle class, create a cleaner environment and toughen national security and defense against cyberattacks.

“Today we’re rolling out a new Cyber Security National Action Plan or CNAT, to address short term and long term challenges when it comes to cyber security”, President Obama said. Another provision would require millionaires to pay at least 30% of their income in taxes, and a new fee “on the largest financial firms on the basis of their liabilities”, the proposed budget stated.

“In the midst of what people are rightly noting is our past year, this is continuing the theme of turning the idea of a lame duck on its head”, the staffer continued, saying that the president is “still totally focused on leaving it all on the field, and putting out new ideas”.

“That document … will be President Obama’s final vision of how he lays out the fiscal future for the country”, said Joel Friedman, vice president for federal fiscal policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Also included in Obama’s plan: increasing training and recruiting programs for the federal government to attract experts in preventing cyber breaches.

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.

Copies of the President Barack Obama’s fiscal 2017 federal budget are unpacked after being delivered to the House Budget Committee Room on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2016. Apart from the normal funding directed to the regulators that oversee the investing and retirement plan domain, two line items in particular jump out of the massive 2017 spending proposal for their relevance to employer-sponsored retirement plans.