According to the Congressional Budget Office, U.S. President Barack Obama’s proposed 2015 budget would increase taxes by $1.4 trillion over the next decade compared with the current law. According to Bloomberg News, the Congressional Budget Office has reported that the proposal would result in a $446 billion spending increase for the 10 years ending in 2024.
U.S. President Barack Obama proposes spending increases of $433 billion over 10 years in the so-called discretionary portion of the budget, in areas such as education, clean energy programs or public works. Discretionary spending accounts for about 30 percent of the federal budget. The remainder is for mandatory spending, such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and interest on the U.S. debt. The largest tax changes in the president’s budget plan reportedly, would be the limits on deductions and exclusions for some high-income filers. The budget plan includes funds for investments in early-childhood education, more teachers placed in elementary school as well as clean-energy research. Taxes would also be raised on large estates, financial institutions, tobacco products, airline passengers and managers of private investment funds according to a report by Yahoo News.
The Washington Post reported that, The Obama administration is seeking $46.2 billion for the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, just $1.6 billion less than it requested for fiscal 2014. The figure includes $5.9 billion for “overseas contingency operations,” which serves as the base budget for operations in Afghanistan. Under the budget proposal, $1.5 billion would be dedicated to address the humanitarian crisis in war-torn Syria and to “support transitions and reforms” in the Middle East and North Africa, regions still being reshaped more than three years after the start of the Arab Spring. The fiscal blueprint would invest $4.6 billion to secure diplomatic facilities overseas and would also support additional security construction – efforts that were largely driven by the fallout from the 2012 attacks on the U.S. compounds in the Libyan city of Benghazi.
In a statement, Paul Ryan said that the Obama budget would never reach balance and would run a $746 billion deficit in fiscal 2024, according to Reuters. “This new report is just more confirmation: The president’s budget would take us in the wrong direction,” reported Paul Ryan. WhiteHouse.gov reported that, “Our budget is about choices,” President Obama said. “It’s about our values. As a country, we’ve got to make a decision if we’re going to protect tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, or if we’re going to make smart investments necessary to create jobs and grow our economy, and expand opportunity for every American.”
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