OBAMA UNVEILS $3.8 TRILLION BUDGET
February 15, 2012 in Politics
NEW YORK–President Obama unveiled a 3.8 trillion budget request Monday that hikes taxes on the rich, spends new money on infrastructure and education, but does not do much for the entitlement programs that are posing the biggest long-term threat to the federal budget.
Obama said in his budget message, “We built this budget around the idea that our country has always done best when everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share and everyone plays by the same rules.”
The budget forecasts a deficit for fiscal year 2012 that will top $1.3 trillion, before falling in 2013 to $901 billion. The deficit projections, which have been around $1 trillion for each year of the Obama presidency, meaning that Obama will not satisfy his 2009 promise to half the deficit by the end of his first term,
The budget also offers fresh insight into how the White House plans to comply with last year’s Budget Control Act, which allowed Congress to raise the debt ceiling in exchange for caps on discretionary spending accounts.
