In a campaign-style speech given at Northern Virginia Community College last week, President Obama detailed the 2013 fiscal year U.S. budget. The Office of Management and Budget has allocated $3.7 trillion for the coming year, and has forecast a $901 billion deficit.
“We can settle for a country where a few people do really, really well, and everybody else struggles to get by,” Obama said. “Or we can restore an economy where everybody gets a fair shot, everybody does their fair share, everybody plays by the same set of rules—from Washington to Wall Street to Main Street.”
$2.06 trillion in proposed budget funding will go to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. The remaining $1.65 trillion will be divided up among roughly 38 different departments.
Obama told the crowd that over the last 23 months, (the United States has) added 3.7 million new jobs, and that “American manufacturers are creating jobs for the first time since the 1990s.”
“At a time when our economy is growing and creating jobs at a faster clip, we’ve got to do everything in our power to keep this recovery on track,” he said.
One main point the President stressed in his speech to NOVA was making education affordable. He ordered Congress to stop student loan interest rates from doubling in July, as well as make permanent a tuition tax credit that has been included in the last few budget proposals.
“We’re saying to Congress, now is not the time to make school more expensive for young people,” he said. “And they can act right now to make that change.”
The four largest sectors listed in the Budget are Health and Human Services (which is swallowing approximately $1.18 trillion in Medicare and Medicaid), the Social Security Administration ($875.5 billion towards Social Security), the $620 billion defense budget, which received cuts across the board, and the Treasury, which holds $472 billion in interest on the public debt, up approximately five percent from last budget.
The education sector took a hit; federal student aid lost $6.8 billion in allotted funds and the Department of Education’s expected revenue for 2013 dropped by roughly $7.8 billion dollars.
Defense lost 4.46 percent of its previous budget, with most of the large cuts—$27 billion worth—being made in discretionary spending areas. The Department of Homeland Security cut $1.8 billion in its budget projection for 2013. Other notable decreases include a predicted 58 percent drop in the Department of Labor’s income and a 52 percent cut in the Economic Development Administration’s budget.
“The budget that we’re releasing today is a reflection of shared responsibility,” Obama said. “It says that if we’re serious about investing in our future and investing in community colleges, and investing in new energy technology, and investing in basic research, well, we’ve got to pay for it. And that means we’ve got to make some choices.”
Near the end of his speech, the president stepped into his campaign shoes, telling the audience, “Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. That’s not fair. It doesn’t make sense at a time when we’ve got to pull together to get the country moving.”
It is unclear exactly when that is, as Congress has not announced a voting schedule for the proposal.