President Obama sent to Congress his $3.9 trillion dollar 2015 budget which includes new spending and a plan to reduce the national debt by raising taxes on the wealthy.
“Our budget is about choices, it’s about our values,” Obama said during an appearance at Powell Elementary School in the District. “As a country we’ve got to make a decision if we’re going to protect tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans or if we’re going to make smart investments necessary to create jobs and grow our economy, and expand opportunity for every American.”
The president’s budget proposal has some targeted reductions but mainly it will raise $1 trillion in taxes in an effort to slow borrowing, but most of it will impact major businesses and the affluent.
House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) derided the request as “a clear sign this president has given up on any efforts to address our serious fiscal challenges that are undermining the future of our kids and grandkids.”
“After years of fiscal and economic mismanagement, the president has offered perhaps his most irresponsible budget yet,” Boehner said in a statement. “Despite signing last year’s bipartisan budget deal – and touting it as an accomplishment – the president now proposes violating that agreement with a spending surge. What’s more, he proposes raising even more taxes – not to reduce the deficit but to spend more taxpayer money.”
Added House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.): “This budget isn’t a serious document; it’s a campaign brochure.” Referring to this year’s mid-term election in which Republicans hope to regain control of the Senate.
Missing in the president’s budget blueprint is his proposal to rein in the spiraling cost of entitlement spending and what his plan will be for tax reform.
Speaker Boehner criticizes the president over his submission of a political budget which appeals to the base of his party and fails to address meaningful tax reform.
The Speaker is acting in a duplicitous manner when last week, Republican House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp released his proposal for overhauling the massive and cumbersome tax code, which had not been reformed since 1986.
The Speaker failed to move it forward.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid praised Camp for his proposal, but said he saw little chance of it moving forward because of obstruction from Republican lawmakers.
Other members of the Republican leadership were dubious at passing tax reform, with North Carolina Congressman Patrick McHenry, stating, “I’ve got enormous respect for Dave Camp, but great concerns with the details of this policy, much less releasing it at a time where we have no partner in the Senate or the White House to have a major undertaking in tax reform.”
Both Republicans and Democrats are playing election year politics with the budget. Both sides made the mess and we need both sides to work together, solving the economic misery the nation is in and it’s over $17 trillion debt problem.
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