Politics
Obama Fiscal Year 2014 budget proposal to kick start deficit-reduction talks
U.S. President Barack Obama discusses the Fiscal Year 2014 Budget while acting Director of Office of Management and Budget Jerry Zients looks on. PHOTO/Reuters
(Reuters) – President Barack Obama proposed a US$3.77 trillion budget on Wednesday that combines controversial cuts to social safety net programs with tax increases on the wealthy in a package the White House hopes will jumpstart deficit-reduction talks.
The proposal, an annual attempt to identify and fund the president’s policy desires, is unlikely ever to become law.
Its deficit-cutting measures mirror an outline Obama put forward last year that was rejected by John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives. There were no major departures from that plan, which the White House has stressed for weeks is still on offer.
Obama’s budget included cuts in Social Security, the pension program for retirees and in Medicare, the health insurance program for seniors. While Obama has made these proposals before, their prominence in Wednesday’s budget was designed to demonstrate his seriousness about negotiating with Republicans on ways to reduce the federal deficit.
“I don’t believe that all these ideas are optimal, but I’m willing to accept them as part of a compromise,” Obama said during brief remarks in the White House Rose Garden.
“When it comes to deficit reduction, I’ve already met Republicans more than halfway. So in the coming days and weeks, I hope that Republicans will come forward and demonstrate that they’re really as serious about the deficits and debt as they claim to be,” he said.
The budget predicts the deficit would fall to US$744 billion in 2014, or 4.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), from an estimated US$973 billion in 2013. Fiscal 2014 begins on October 1.
