What to Expect in Obama's 2014 Budget: Spending and Disappointment

The president's budget has already set a record - for being late. It was due a couple of months ago. But, you know, there's that whole life-work balance thing. And lord knows, what with the sequester and all that, the White House is so broke it can't even host tours, much less keep a full staff on hand to do its core functions.

The whole plan should be out in a couple of hours, but in the meantime, here's CNN's summary:

The 2014 budget has some big top line numbers:

• $3.77 trillion in spending
• $744 billion deficit
• $580 billion in net revenue from higher taxes on wealthy income earners
• $50 billion in road repair and mass transit spending
• $210 billion in savings from lower interest payments
• $400 billion in health care savings, primarily through higher costs imposed on doctors, hospitals and drug companies
• $200 billion in new discretionary spending cuts divided equally between defense and non-defense programs.

Read more here.

courtesy Mercatus Center

CBS News and other sources are reporting expected widespread annoyance at the budget plan. USA Today headlines an early morning story, "On left and right, Obama's budget anticipated as a dud."

We're on track to spend about $3.6 trillion this year. As a reminder, the House budget, prepared by the GOP majority, calls for spending $3.5 trillion in fiscal 2014 (which starts on October 1 of this year). The Senate budget, prepared by the Democratic majority, calls for spending $3.7 trillion (that's the first Senate budget proposal in four years). Both of those plans estimate $3 trillion in taxes and both grow spending substantially over the next decade, with the Reps ending up at annual spending of $5 trillion in 2023 and the Dems want to be pushing out $5.7 trillion annually by then.

In its latest projection of anticipated spending based on current law, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) anticipates spending of $3.6 trillion in 2014 (that figure assumes sequestration cuts hold firm on spending patterns). So Obama is coming in well north of CBO and his own party in the Senate.

All of this comes on top of a 21st-century spending spree that would have left even Mary Todd Lincoln speechless.

More details as they become available.

Comments

[sarcasmic]

Did someone taste that ice cream for him?

[Auric Demonocles]

If you've got an ice cream cone, you didn't taste that.

[db]

Hey, if Obama can't tell us how he wants to spend our tax money on time, does that mean we get a few months extra to pay for taxes in 2014?

[Ptah-Hotep]

does that mean we get a few months extra to pay for taxes in 2014?

Let me know how that works out for you. I bet you even get interest on your tax refund, right?

[Restoras]

Maybe we should just add a few months to the calendar.

[Auric Demonocles]

does that mean we get a few months extra to pay for taxes in 2014?

If by that you mean 'take a few more months to earn the money to pay off all the taxes', then yes.

[gaijin]

the Dems want to be pushing out $5.7 trillion annually by then.

as if the spending requires some focussed, constipation-busting effort. More like they want to 'violently discharge $5.7 T annually'

[radar]

Wallace Stevens alt-text? Nice.

[some guy]

The 2014 budget has some big top line numbers:

$3.77 trillion in spending
$744 billion deficit
$580 billion in net revenue from higher taxes on wealthy income earners
$50 billion in road repair and mass transit spending
$210 billion in savings from lower interest payments
$400 billion in health care savings, primarily through higher costs imposed on doctors, hospitals and drug companies
$200 billion in new discretionary spending cuts divided equally between defense and non-defense programs.

All of these numbers are bullshit. And not just because this budget will never pass either chamber of Congress.

[Rights-Minimalist Autocrat]

$50 billion in road repair and mass transit spending

Thank the gods he's finally getting serious about fixing that crumbling infrastructure he's been going on about.

[KDN]

$580 billion in net revenue from higher taxes on wealthy income earners

There's no way that's correct.

[JWatts]

That's an over the next 10 years type figure.

[Rasilio]

I don't think so, it is listed in the middle of the list and all of the other numbers in the list are single year numbers

[Rasilio]

Tell me about it, I did some rough back of the envelop calculations last year and if they simply confiscated 100% of all income over $200,000 per year and even assuming that there were no secondary effects it would have only raised an extra $1.5 trillion.

So he is proposing to somehow tax ~30% of all currently untaxed income over $200k per year, That would translate to something like a 120% increase in effective tax rates on the wealthy and assuming that those wealthy people would not change their behavior in the meantime.

[eyeroller]

So let's get this straight, the greatest anti-government budget hawk America has ever known wants to spend $3.5 trillion, and the greatest rabid socialist America has ever known wants to spend $3.77 trillion.

How can we possibly survive when Washington is so polarized?

[JWatts]

$210 billion in savings from lower interest payments

This is just a hilarious budget line item.

Honey, we have more debts than income, but are interest payments dropped this year. So let's go out and spend all the extra money we've got.

[Auric Demonocles]

Boy, look at the chart and you can really see the one-time spending from the stimulus.

[Stormy Dragon]

$400 billion in health care savings, primarily through higher costs imposed on doctors, hospitals and drug companies

So if the government stops taking as much of my money at gunpoint and giving it to healthcare providers, that constitutes "imposing higher costs imposed on doctors, hospitals and drug companies"? I see the "get the government out of my Medicare" branch of the GOP is back in vogue.

[Spartacus]

"And lord knows, what with the sequester and all that, the White House is so broke it can't even host tours, much less keep a full staff on hand to do its core functions."

Maybe they should have done the budget request in calligraphy.

[Corning]

Once again:

That last year of Bush on the graph includes 700+ billion in spending signed by Obama for stimulus.

[Sigivald]

The graph should be improved by making it - like the article does - reflect the important reality that Party control of Congress is more relevant to the Budget than the Party of the President, in terms of blame assessment.

Congress makes the budget, after all; all the President can do is suggest spending, and veto it if he dares ... not that it's likely to work, or be politically useful.