President Obama released his budget plan for fiscal year 2012 today, but it has not come without scrutiny, as it is a $3.7 trillion budget filled with tax increases and more borrowing.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Obama’s budget includes cutting defense spending by $78 billion over the next five years; cuts to programs, such as the Low Income Home Energy Assistance, while entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security would not receive any reductions. This budget would include a tax credit for purchasing electric vehicles and loans for nuclear power plant production.
With the nation’s debt amassing $14 trillion, Obama’s proposed budget is being welcomed by criticism. The U.S. House Budget Committee and the Senate Budget Committee found that the President’s budget has $8.7 trillion in new spending, $1.6 trillion in new taxes, and will accumulate $13 trillion in debt.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said, in a statement:
Today, the President missed a unique opportunity to provide real leadership by offering a budget that fails to address the grave fiscal situation facing our country. At a time when unemployment is too high and economic growth is elusive in part because of the uncertainty created by our skyrocketing debt, we need serious reforms that will help restore confidence so that people can get back to work. We need a government that finally does what every other American has to do in their households and their businesses, and that’s to live within our means. Instead, President Obama’s budget doubles down on the bad habits of the past four years by calling for more taxes, spending and borrowing of money that we simply do not have.
“President Obama has used tough rhetoric about the need to get our fiscal house in order, even assembling a bipartisan commission to address entitlement spending which accounts for more than half of our federal budget including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Unfortunately, the President again failed to put action behind his words by neglecting to even acknowledge these tough issues that everyone knows drive up our debt and must be reformed if they are to meet their obligations for younger Americans.
In fact, the deficit for this year is larger than all of Obama’s budget reductions over 10 years. Perhaps, Obama’s budget should focus on reducing government spending by cutting programs and entitlements to help address the nation’s debt.
