Obama fires budget salvo as election battle looms
Source: Agencies |
February 12, 2012, Sunday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
UNITED States President Barack Obama will seek billions of dollars for jobs and infrastructure in his 2013 budget, an appeal to voters that draws election-year battle lines over taxes and spending as Republicans slammed him for "debt, doubt and decline."
Obama's budget proposal, which he will submit to Congress tomorrow, will project a much smaller deficit in 2013 compared with this year, White House officials said on Friday.
"The budget targets scarce federal resources to the areas critical to growing the economy and restoring middle class security," the White House said in a statement, echoing Obama's recent messages on the campaign trial.
The budget gives Obama one of his biggest platforms before the election to tell voters how he would govern in a second White House term, helping him cast Republicans as the party of the rich, while they paint him as a tax and spend liberal. Congress is free to ignore his proposal and Republicans, seeking to defeat him on November 6, declared it dead on arrival.
"This unserious budget is a recipe for debt, doubt and decline," said Brendan Buck, spokesman for the top Republican lawmaker, Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner. "It would make our economy worse by imposing massive tax increases on small business and still pile up enormous debt."
The budget will include a multi-year request for over US$800 billion for job creation programs and spending on roads and other surface infrastructure, including over US$300 billion that could be felt starting this year in tax breaks and other steps to spur hiring.
Obama's request projects a deficit in fiscal 2013 of $901 billion, down from US$1.33 trillion this year, officials said.
The numbers, both higher than the White House estimated in September, indicate a deficit equivalent to 5.5 percent of gross domestic product in 2013, versus 8.5 percent in 2012.
In addition, recent indicators from the labor market have been better than expected and the White House has already announced that a predicted 2012 jobless rate in the budget of 8.9 percent was "stale" and should be lower.
Obama will repeat a call for millionaires to pay a minimum tax rate of 30 percent, named after billionaire Warren Buffett, and identify US$4 trillion in deficit reducing steps over 10 years that echo plans he laid out in September.
More details on the Buffett Rule will come later, along with details of Obama's proposed minimum international tax on the foreign profits of US firms.
Obama's budget proposal, which he will submit to Congress tomorrow, will project a much smaller deficit in 2013 compared with this year, White House officials said on Friday.
"The budget targets scarce federal resources to the areas critical to growing the economy and restoring middle class security," the White House said in a statement, echoing Obama's recent messages on the campaign trial.
The budget gives Obama one of his biggest platforms before the election to tell voters how he would govern in a second White House term, helping him cast Republicans as the party of the rich, while they paint him as a tax and spend liberal. Congress is free to ignore his proposal and Republicans, seeking to defeat him on November 6, declared it dead on arrival.
"This unserious budget is a recipe for debt, doubt and decline," said Brendan Buck, spokesman for the top Republican lawmaker, Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner. "It would make our economy worse by imposing massive tax increases on small business and still pile up enormous debt."
The budget will include a multi-year request for over US$800 billion for job creation programs and spending on roads and other surface infrastructure, including over US$300 billion that could be felt starting this year in tax breaks and other steps to spur hiring.
Obama's request projects a deficit in fiscal 2013 of $901 billion, down from US$1.33 trillion this year, officials said.
The numbers, both higher than the White House estimated in September, indicate a deficit equivalent to 5.5 percent of gross domestic product in 2013, versus 8.5 percent in 2012.
In addition, recent indicators from the labor market have been better than expected and the White House has already announced that a predicted 2012 jobless rate in the budget of 8.9 percent was "stale" and should be lower.
Obama will repeat a call for millionaires to pay a minimum tax rate of 30 percent, named after billionaire Warren Buffett, and identify US$4 trillion in deficit reducing steps over 10 years that echo plans he laid out in September.
More details on the Buffett Rule will come later, along with details of Obama's proposed minimum international tax on the foreign profits of US firms.
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