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.
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.