Obama’s Budget Heads To Congress [VIDEO]

President Barack Obama is proposing an increase in taxes on wealthy individuals and some corporations, putting him at odds with all the Republican presidential hopefuls.

The budget also sets the stage for an ideological battle that won’t be resolved until after the November election — if then.

INTERACTIVE: The Federal Budget

Obama’s proposal released Monday calls for a tax reform package that would increase revenue by $1.5 trillion over the next decade. Obama says he wants to simplify the tax code, lowering marginal tax rates while eliminating or reducing tax breaks enjoyed by wealthy individuals and U.S.-based multinational corporations.

Obama’s GOP rivals, including former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, have proposed tax plans that independent experts say would result in lower taxes for corporations and the wealthy.

Obama promotes job training at NORTHERN VIRGINIA community college

Obama is calling on Congress to create an $8 billion fund to help connect community college students with businesses looking to hire workers for high-growth industries.

Obama says the fund could train 2 million workers in sectors like health care, transportation and advanced manufacturing. The fund is part of the new budget Obama released on Monday.

Even as the U.S. struggles to emerge from the economic downturn, some high-tech industries have a shortage of workers. And it is anticipated there will be 2 million job openings in manufacturing nationally through 2018.

As he promoted the community college fund and other proposals in his budget, Obama urged Congress not to stand in the way of “America’s comeback.”

An agency-by-agency guide to Obama’s budget

President Barack Obama proposed a $3.8 trillion budget on Monday for fiscal 2013 that aims to slash the

deficit by $4 trillion over 10 years but still envisions growth in the government’s major health benefit programs.

Here is the agency-by-agency breakdown:

Agency: Commerce

Spending: $9.2 billion

Percentage Change from 2012: 15.6 percent increase

Discretionary Spending: $8 billion

Highlights: Obama’s proposed budget for the department would

provide $708 million for the National Institute of Standards and

Technology laboratories with the goal of making U.S. manufacturers

more competitive. The president also is calling for spending $517

million on the International Trade Administration to promote U.S.

exports in key markets abroad and to improve trade enforcement.

Obama’s budget blueprint calls for more than $5 billion for the

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an increase of

about $160 million.

The administration would increase funds for the U.S. Patent and

Trademark Office to accelerate patent processing and improve patent

quality.

Obama also wants $10 billion to help build an interoperable

public safety broadband network. Those costs would be offset by

auctioning spectrum used to expand wireless broadband access and

services.

——

Agency: Environmental Protection Agency

Spending: $8.1 billion

Percentage Change from 2012: 2.1 percent decrease

Discretionary Spending: $8.3 billion

Highlights: Perhaps anticipating resistance from congressional

Republicans, who are looking to target the Environmental Protection

Agency’s budget, Obama has proposed a $175 million cut to the

nation’s environmental protector. It’s the third consecutive year

that the Democratic president has called for trimming the agency’s

spending plan.

To achieve those savings, the EPA’s proposed budget reduces

cleanup money for the nation’s most hazardous waste sites, leaving

enough to deal with emergency releases. It also would eliminate

what it calls redundant grant programs to states and tribes to help

reduce indoor radon exposure and monitor beaches to ensure they’re

safe enough for swimming.

To help states meet a host of new air pollution regulations

finalized and in the works at EPA, the budget includes a $66

million increase for air quality programs. But it cuts money to

states to improve infrastructure and treatment plants for drinking

water.

Rep. Ed Whitfield of Kentucky, a top Republican on the House

Energy and Commerce Committee, told reporters last week that the

GOP would be taking a hard look at the agency’s assistance to

states. But many of them are struggling financially and have made

their own cuts to environmental programs, reducing monitoring,

inspections and enforcement in communities and neighborhoods.

The budget includes $5 million for the EPA to increase the

number and frequency of inspections at high-risk oil and chemical

facilities.

Obama reiterated his commitment to reduce the gases blamed for

global warming, and says the agency will continue to pursue ways to

control greenhouse gas-pollution from power plants, factories and

refineries, despite opposition from Republicans and some industry

groups.

Agency: Housing and Urban Development

Spending: $44 billion

Percentage Change from 2012: 21.3 percent decrease

Discretionary Spending: $35.3 billion

Highlights: Obama’s proposed budget would provide $2.3 billion

for the administration’s goal to end chronic homelessness. HUD’s

programs serve primarily the poor, elderly and disabled.

The blueprint also seeks $34.8 billion to preserve rental

housing assistance to 4.7 million low-income families and $154

million to expand affordable housing to seniors and persons with

disabilities. Obama is also asking for $650 million for housing for

Native American tribes.

Obama’s proposal would keep funding for the Community

Development Block Grant program at 2012 levels. States and cities

use the money to build streets and sidewalks, provide water and

build sewers and make other infrastructure improvements in

low-income neighborhoods. Local officials struggling to balance

budgets support the program.

Agency: Justice

Spending: $30 billion

Percentage Change from 2012: 15.3 percent decrease

Discretionary Spending: $17.9 billion

Highlights: Obama wants to spend more than $700 million to

investigate and prosecute financial crimes that take place from

Wall Street to Main Street, an increase of $55 million over the

current budget. The extra money would pay for additional FBI

agents, prosecutors, civil attorneys and accountants. The types of

misconduct the law enforcement money would target include

securities and commodities fraud, investment scams like the

infamous Ponzi scheme of Bernard Madoff, mortgage foreclosure

schemes and fraud against economic recovery programs.

The administration is proposing to spend nearly $40 million to

combat intellectual property theft, an increase of $5 million from

the current budget. Criminals using the Internet have cashed in on

the explosion in online commerce by trafficking in counterfeit

goods and copyrighted products. The Obama administration has worked

with law enforcement officials from more than 30 countries to round

up criminals running the illicit networks.

The Justice Department is proposing to spend $12.444 billion on

its four key law enforcement components, $38 million less than the

current spending level. The four agencies are the FBI, the Drug

Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,

Firearms and Explosives and the U.S. Marshals Service. Since 2001,

the year of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Justice

Department’s law enforcement components have grown by 106 percent.

The administration says it is encouraged by the downward trend in

violent crime rates and that the Justice Department has identified

$138 million in savings that will be carried out by consolidating

or eliminating some offices.

Agency: Labor

Spending: $89 billion

Percentage Change from 2012: 35.7 percent decrease

Discretionary Spending: $12 billion

Highlights: Most of the cuts at Labor would come from an

expected decrease in spending on unemployment insurance programs as

the overall unemployment rate declines and fewer people claim

benefits.

But those projections also assume there will be no further

spending on long-term unemployment benefits beyond Feb. 29. That’s

when a temporary extension of benefits that Congress enacted late

last year will expire. House and Senate negotiators are working on

a deal that would extend those benefits past the end of the month

as part of broader discussions on extending the payroll tax cut.

The deal is likely to reduce the maximum number of 99 weeks that

unemployed people are allowed to seek benefits.

Like last year’s plan, the budget would trim $450 million from

Labor’s share of a program that helps train older workers for jobs

and community service programs. The program would be transferred to

the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The agency also is expected to save about $245 million from a

reduced work load in processing unemployment benefit claims.

The budget would increase spending on wage enforcement and

workplace safety programs, including $10 million to crack down on

companies that cheat workers out of minimum wage and overtime

payments. It would also boost a program that identifies workers

misclassified as independent contractors.

Another $15 million increase would go to programs that offer

employment and training services to help the long-term unemployed

return to the work force.

The department is requesting an additional $17 million to help

reduce the backlog of mine safety cases.

Agency: NASA

Spending: $17.7 billion

Percentage Change from 2012: 0.3 percent decrease.

Discretionary Spending: $17.7 billion

Highlights: Obama’s proposed space agency budget entails a large

shift within NASA for how the same amount of money is essentially

spent. The biggest loser is the planet Mars, along with exploring

the rest of the planets in our solar system. The president proposed

cutting $309 million for studying planets this year, with more cuts

in future years. After an already mostly built Mars mission in

2013, future journeys to the red planet are eliminated, put on hold

or restructured. While the study of planets would be sliced 21

percent, spending for the overall budget and long delayed James

Webb Space Telescope would increase 21 percent. The telescope which

may cost $8 billion is the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope

and would peer further into the universe and back in time than

ever.

The president wants to double the amount of money spent to help

private firms develop their own spaceships that could eventually

carry astronauts and others to the International Space Station as

taxis. This would replace the now retired space shuttle program and

the dependence on Russia for rides into orbit. The president wants

to spend $829.7 million to help these companies, but Congress has

regularly cut his commercial space proposals. The budget includes

the last bit of spending on the retired space shuttles: $71

million.

Much of the spending continues a trend shifting from current

space missions to developing the next generation of rockets and

capsules for flights out of Earth’s orbit to an asteroid or even to

Mars. The president proposes an extra $345 million in spending on

developing new rocketry and space technology. That overall proposal

includes $1.8 billion for a congressionally mandated large rocket

that could carry bigger loads further into space and $1 billion for

the Orion crew capsule to take astronauts to new places. A first

test flight of the spaceships — without astronauts — could be as

early as 2017, with astronauts flying in them no earlier than 2021.

Agency: State

Spending: $69 billion

Percentage Change from 2012: 13.8 percent increase

Discretionary Spending: $54.3 billion

Highlights: Obama’s proposed budget for the State Department and

U.S. foreign assistance calls for spending $11.8 billion for

civilian operations and aid in Iraq ($4.8 billion), Afghanistan

($4.6 billion) and Pakistan ($2.4 billion). It retains major

military aid programs to Israel, which will get $3.1 billion;

Egypt, which is slated for $1.3 billion, and Jordan, which is to

get $300 million.

The spending plan sets aside $770 million for the creation of a

new Middle East and North Africa Incentive Fund to promote

democracy, good governance and free market economies in Arab

nations roiled by revolt. It allocates $2.7 billion in economic

assistance to support transitions in other parts of the developing

world, including the world’s newest nation, South Sudan, Liberia,

Haiti and Myanmar.

The proposal maintains billions of dollars in spending on

international health projects, including the President’s Emergency

Plan for AIDS Relief, which will cost $5.4 billion and expects to

have treated six million people, many in Africa, by the end of

2013.

On the savings side, the budget pares aid to eastern European

and Eurasian countries by 18 percent, cuts back on a planned

expansion of State Department personnel and reduces an ambitious

overseas construction program that was to build new secure

embassies.

——

Agency: Transportation

Spending: $74.3 billon

Percentage Change from 2012: 39.4 percent decrease

Discretionary Spending: $13.8 billion

Highlights: Obama’s proposed transportation budget includes a

six-year, $476-billion surface transportation bill to be paid for

by user fees and some of the savings from reducing military

operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. That’s a decrease from the bare

bones, six-year, $556 billion surface transportation bill he

proposed last year.

A key difference is that last year Obama’s plan — which was

largely ignored by Congress — didn’t include proposals to pay

transportation investments. Also, both last year’s plan and this

year’s plan far exceed the spending called for under transportation

bills in the House and Senate, where lawmakers have struggled to

find money to pay for highway and transit projects. The House bill

would spend $260 billion over 4 1/2 years; the Senate $109 billion

over less than two years.

Like last year, Obama’s proposal calls for significant funding

for high-speed trains — $47 billion over six years. That’s about $6

billion less than last year’s proposal. But neither the House nor

the Senate bills contain any money for high-speed rail. Nor is

there any money in the current budget.

Obama’s budget also calls for a $50 billion “upfront” infusion

for roads, bridges, transit systems, border crossing railways and

runways in the current fiscal year to spur job creation.

The idea of taking war “savings” to pay for other programs is

budgetary sleight of hand. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have

been largely financed through borrowing, so stopping the wars

doesn’t create a pool of ready cash, just less debt.

Agency: Veterans Affairs

Spending: $137.4 billion

Percentage Change from 2012: 10.6 percent increase

Discretionary Spending: $61 billion

Highlights: Obama’s budget reflects the growing number of

veterans who will need health care through the VA. The budget

projects that about 610,000 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan

wars will get health care through VA’s hospitals and clinics this

fiscal year. The budget seeks spending increases for virtually all

health services provided, including a 5 percent increase for mental

health services, which has become a top priority among

congressional oversight committees, and a double-digit increase for

health programs designed to assist female veterans.

The budget also proposes $1 billion over five years for a

Veterans Jobs Corps, a new initiative that would put veterans to

work rebuilding roads, trails and other infrastructure on public

lands.

The budget seeks a 33 percent increase in spending to combat

homelessness among veterans. The administration has set a goal of

eliminating homelessness among veterans by 2015. The money would be

used to hire coordinators who will help veterans with disability

claims, housing problems and other needs. Additional money would be

provided to non-profits that help house veterans and their

families.

Obama also is seeking more money to deal with the growing number

of disability claims that the department is getting from veterans.

Veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan are filing claims that

include about 8.5 disabilities per veteran, a rate nearly double

that for claims from veterans of previous wars.

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