Cartoon: The Vaccine We Need

The budget presents a vision of unprecedented government largess: $4 trillion in government spending for 2016 alone. At more than 21 percent of GDP, the president’s proposed spending comes in well over the post-World War II average, consistent with the president’s apparent notion that the government can spend money more effectively than the private sector.

Also troubling is the president’s call to shred the bipartisan budget caps enacted in 2011. Obama proposes to spend $75 billion more in 2016, largely on discredited and outside-the-proper-scope-of-the-federal-government programs such as government-funded childcare. While imperfect, these caps provide an effective mechanism to control domestic discretionary spending.

The Defense Department has been underfunded for several years and Congress should increase spending on military capabilities and readiness, in a fiscally responsible manner. This means meeting the sequester’s original purpose of encouraging spending reforms that improve the U.S. fiscal situation—with entitlement reforms like Medicare premium support and Social Security benefit and eligibility changes, as well as cuts to domestic discretionary programs and military compensation reform.

Entitlement spending reform is absolutely crucial to control spending (entitlements are responsible for 85 percent of the growth in spending over the next decade). Moreover, Congress should eliminate wasteful, inappropriate and outside-the-proper-scope of government spending.

Obama’s budget, on the other hand, fails to substantively reform entitlement programs, which comes as no surprise. Obama’s signature law—Obamacare—is responsible for 44 percent of the increase in entitlement spending over the next decade.

While the administration claims its plan would reduce the cumulative deficit over 10 years (it increases the 2016 deficit from the Congressional Budget Office-projected $467 billion to $474 billion), it certainly does not do so by curtailing spending. Deficits are tamed through massive tax increases—a threat to the economy that is just now showing signs of life. Even with tax increases, the deficit will still grow to almost $700 billion within a decade, adding another $6 trillion of debt to the $18 trillion the nation has already amassed. Obama’s budget never balances.

Given the massive spending and tax increases and yet no attempt at balancing the budget, the president’s budget is almost certainly doomed in the GOP-controlled congress. That is a good thing for the nation. The budget lays out a vision of expansive government with no meaningful reforms that would remedy the nation’s growing fiscal problem. To actually usher in a better future for Americans, Congress should disregard this budget and focus on spending reforms that put the budget on a path to balance to grow the economy and stop the growth in the national debt.

Read more of Heritage’s analysis of President Obama’s budget here.

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