Despite talk of boosting the middle class, President Obama on Monday released a 2016 budget proposal with progressive policies that “apply more to how he would pay for the new appropriations–not the spending itself,” according to Politico.
While the budget outlines a $74 billion spending increase, half would go to defense spending, and a significant chunk of the other half would fund expanded veterans and international affairs programs.
Over all, Politico reported, two-thirds of the additional funding would go to programs decried as underfunded by the right-wing of the Senate Budget Committee.
The White House has called for $60 billion in increased taxes, which include rate hikes on capital gains and inherited wealth, and a one-time 14 percent levy on the $2 trillion in corporate profit stashed overseas.
Despite recent White House proposals to expand access to community college, childcare and municipal broadband and to mandate paid sick and maternity leave — what The New York Times called “an expensive domestic agenda aimed at improving the middle class” — the most noteworthy funding increase included in its budget would allocate more money to infrastructure spending over the next six years, The Washington Post reported.
The Post did note, however, that Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), the ranking member of the House Budget Committee, said the proposal includes extending “tax credits for families with children.” It also cited a Tax Policy Center paper that concluded “winners would outnumber losers by more than 7 to 1, with the tax increases concentrated among the richest 1 percent of households.”
Though the President’s budget proposals might not match his rhetoric on budgetary matters, with the majority of increased spending pivoting, in one way or another, around national security issues, Republicans are continuing to struggle to respond to his recent spate of populism, as The Sentinel has previously noted.
On Sunday, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the House Ways and Means Committee Chair and a noted Ayn Rand evangelist, described President Obama’s tax policy as “envy economics.” On Monday morning, however, House Republicans indicated again that they are increasingly accepting the idea that one sector of the economy has benefited immensely at the expense of others.
“An #OpportunityEconomy is built on Main Street, not Wall Street,” @HouseGOP tweeted.
