Maybe it’s the freedom that comes with the final year in office or maybe it’s the leftward pressure coming from a socialist on the campaign trail, but President Obama just unveiled his most progressive annual budget proposal to date.
The White House dropped the $4.1 trillion framework Tuesday, which included hefty new investments in green energy, universal preschool, and policing Wall Street.
In perhaps a nod to the populist anger toward bankers–articulated to resounding success on the campaign trail by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)–the budget includes an 11-percent increase in funding for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and an 32-percent hike for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The plans would put the key financial regulators on track to seeing their budgets doubled by 2021.
“Our Nation’s financial regulators must be able to supervise and regulate Wall Street, and doing so requires resources,” said Jeffrey Zients, the Director of the president’s National Economic Council in a blog post, in a blog post on Monday.
“For years, Congress has fallen short when it comes to providing the appropriate resources to the agencies tasked with keeping investors, markets, and consumers safe.” Zeints added.
During oversight hearings last year, both CFTC Chairman Timothy Massad and SEC Chairwoman Mary Jo White implored lawmakers to increase funding for their respective agencies.
“We simply can’t get into these entities on a regular basis,” Massad told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee last May. “We don’t even get to many of the clearinghouses and exchanges once a year. That is a big problem.”
The president also called on Congress to fund a universal preschool program, providing all four-year-olds from working class families access to quality preschool education, and to provide funding for two years of tuition-free community college to students.
On the climate change front, the budget calls for new for a 25 percent annual increase in spending on green energy, including a $320 billion investment in “clean transportation infrastructure.”
“The Budget is a roadmap to a future that embodies America’s values and aspirations,” President Obama said in a message accompanying the proposal, “a future of opportunity and security for all of our families; a rising standard of living; and a sustainable, peaceful planet for our kids.”
On the national security front, cyber defense would also receive increased funding–a 35 percent uptick from fiscal year 2016. When it comes to funding overseas military operations aimed primarily at the Islamic State, however, the president’s proposal keeps spending roughly the same, at $59 billion for fiscal year 2017.
Shortly after it was released, the budget’s left-of-center credentials got a boost from Republican leaders in Congress. “This isn’t even a budget so much as it is a progressive manual for growing the federal government at the expense of hardworking Americans,” Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) said in a statement Tuesday.
GOP leadership, however, did not grant the administration the opportunity to defend their plans in congressional hearings, abandoning convention on Capitol Hill for the last sixteen years.
Some of the administration’s 2017 Budget initiatives have already grabbed headlines over the past few weeks, including the $1 billion investment “moon-shot” to cure cancer, which the President previewed during his State of the Union address last month.
Fiscal year 2017 starts on Oct. 1.
CORRECTION: This article initially stated, erroneously, that the CFTC would have an 11-percent budget increase, and the SEC would have a 32-percent budget increase. We regret the mistake.
