Obama to seek to bust spending limits by $74B

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama will ask Congress to boost government spending by roughly 7 percent above current limits, the White House said today, setting up a certain clash with Republicans who insist that federal spending must be held in check.

Obama's budget, to be formally released Monday, will call for $74 billion more than the levels frozen in place by across-the-board cuts agreed to by both Democrats and Republicans and signed by Obama into law. The White House said his new budget proposals will "fully reverse" the so-called sequestration cuts by increasing spending on both the domestic and military sides by similar amounts.

Under Obama's proposal, national security programs would see an increase of $38 billion over current spending limits, raising the defense budget to $561 billion. On the domestic side, Obama is calling for $530 billion in spending — an increase of $37 billion.

"If Congress rejects my plan and refuses to undo these arbitrary cuts, it will threaten our economy and our military," Obama warned in an op-ed article Thursday in The Huffington Post.