President Obama’s Last Budget, and Last Budget Battle With Congress

Story by New York Times
Written by Jackie Calmes

WASHINGTON — President Obama on Tuesday sent his final annual budget proposal to a hostile Republican-led Congress, seeking $19 billion for a broad new cybersecurity initiative and rejecting the lame-duck label as he declared that his plan “is about looking forward.”

The budget for fiscal year 2017, which starts Oct. 1, would top $4 trillion, although only about one-quarter of that is the so-called discretionary spending for domestic and military programs that the president and Congress dicker over each year. The rest is for mandatory spending, chiefly interest on the federal debt and the Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits that are expanding as the population ages.

The deficit would increase in this fiscal year to $616 billion from $438 billion last year, the budget projects, in part because of myriad tax cuts that Mr. Obama and Congress agreed in December to make permanent. That would make this year’s shortfall equal to 3.3 percent of the economy’s output, or gross domestic product, up from 2.5 percent. That exceeds the 3 percent threshold that economists consider sustainable for a growing economy.

In fiscal 2017 — which begins in October and is covered by Mr. Obama’s spending and tax proposals, including a $10-a-barrel fee on oil — the deficit would dip again for a couple years but then begin increasing again, mainly because of the costs for aging Americans’ retirement and health care. But the administration says annual deficits would remain below 3 percent of the gross domestic product through the decade to 2026.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/10/us/politics/obama-budget-cybersecurity-congress.html?_r=0