US President Barack Obama will call for a 7 percent rise in US domestic and military spending in his budget that would end caps known as “sequestration,” the White House said on Thursday, setting up a new conflict with Republicans in Congress.
The fiscal 2016 budget, which the administration plans to unveil on Monday, would fund a host of programs that Republicans are unlikely to support.
It is the latest salvo by the Democratic president lobbed at a Congress controlled by the opposition party, and follows a defiant State of the Union address last week that critics said betrayed an unwillingness to seek compromise.
Photo: Reuters
Obama maintained that tone during remarks to congressional Democrats in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, promising not to remain on the sidelines during the last two years of his presidency and urging lawmakers to be unapologetic about backing progressive policies.
“Let’s make sure that we end this across-the-board sequester,” he said. “Let’s make sure we’re funding the things that we know help American families succeed.”
The White House hopes it can find common ground with Republicans to prevent sequester cuts from going back into full force when the next fiscal year begins on Oct. 1.
Obama’s budget, which is as much a political document as a fiscal road map, would do that by trimming “inefficient spending programs” and eliminating tax loopholes, a White House official said.
It proposes a roughly 7 percent spending jump over the sequester limits.
That includes US$530 billion in non-defense discretionary spending, which is US$37 billion above the caps, and US$561 billion in defense outlays, which is US$38 billion above.
“This is the beginning of a negotiation,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters. “We’re certainly open to ideas that Republicans have.”
The proposals got a quick brush-off from Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office, which said the administration tried unsuccessfully to do away with the cuts before.
“Previous budgets submitted by the president have purported to reverse the bipartisan spending limits through tax increases that the Congress, even under Democrats, could never accept,” said Don Stewart, McConnell’s deputy chief of staff.
The automatic spending cuts went into effect in 2013, but were lessened last year and this year under a bipartisan bill negotiated by Democratic Senator Patty Murray and Republican Representative Paul Ryan.
That compromise bill ends with the current fiscal year on Sept. 30.
A spokesman for Republican House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said Obama’s solution of raising taxes for some would not fly.
“Republicans believe there are smarter ways to cut spending than the sequester and have passed legislation to replace it multiple times, only to see the president continue to demand tax hikes,” Cory Fritz said. “Until he gets serious about solving our long-term spending problem, it’s hard to take him seriously.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS