President Obama released his fiscal year 2015 budget request today. Sadly, for those who support smart, sensible budgeting, the president’s budget is nothing to celebrate. The budget increases spending and fails to tackle the main driver of our budget problem—entitlement spending. All deficit reduction included in the budget is from revenue increases, not spending cuts.
In coming days, we’ll be analyzing the president’s budget in detail, but here are the top-line numbers:
1. The president’s budget proposes spending more than the Ryan-Murray budget deal passed in December. Under the agreement reached by Congressman Ryan and Senator Murray, and supported by the president, discretionary spending for fiscal year 2015 should be $1,014 trillion. The president’s budget includes a section that bumps that up by $56 billion, paid for mostly by tax increases.
2. Over the 10-year budgetary window, the president spends $171 billion more than Congressional Budget Office (CBO) baseline. The budget also runs large deficits every single year.
3. According to Obama’s budget, the federal government will collect $3.3 trillion in tax revenue in 2015, more than any other year in history. The budget includes $650 billion in new revenue though various tax hikes. The president’s Office of Management and Budget also made rosier assumptions about economic growth over the next 10 years than did the CBO. As a result, the president’s budget would collect an additional $3.1 trillion in revenue over 10 years than CBO assumes.
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