Obama unveils $4.1 trillion budget

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

President Barack Obama on Tuesday unveiled a record $4.1 trillion, election-year budget that finances Democratic priorities such as education, health care and climate change with new taxes on crude oil, the wealthy and big banks.

The progressive wish list, which comes as the nation’s long-term fiscal outlook is deteriorating, underscores the initiatives pushed by Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, who hope to succeed Obama. Republicans dismissed the proposal as a tax-and-spend exercise.

Obama called the budget – his eighth and final one – “a roadmap to a future that embodies America’s values and aspirations: a future of opportunity and security for all of our families; a rising standard of living; and a sustainable, peaceful planet for our kids.”

The budget was unveiled on the same day as the New Hampshire presidential primary, with much of the focus on the political fight over Obama’s successor.

The budget calls for a major new tax on crude oil that would raise the price of gasoline, currently averaging about $1.80 a gallon nationwide, by about 24 cents. All told, its tax hikes would average more than a quarter-trillion dollars a year to cover deficits made worse by a softening economic picture. The $2.8 trillion net tax hike package would almost double the tax increases Obama sought – and was denied – last year.

“This isn’t even a budget so much as it is a progressive manual for growing the federal government at the expense of hardworking Americans,” said House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

As in past years, Obama’s budget largely leaves alone huge benefit programs such as Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid and food stamps, whose spiraling growth is the main driver of budget deficits that economists say could drag down the economy unless policymakers step in.