President Obama unveiled a $3.8 trillion budget request Monday that hikes taxes on the rich, spends new money on infrastructure and education, but does little to reform the entitlement programs that pose the biggest long-term threat to the federal budget.
“We built this budget around the idea that our country has always done best when everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share and everyone plays by the same rules,” Obama said in his budget message.
But the budget forecasts a deficit for fiscal year 2012 that will top $1.3 trillion, before falling in 2013 to $901 billion, or 5.5% of gross domestic product.
The deficit projections, which have hovered near $1 trillion for each year of the Obama presidency, mean that Obama will not satisfy his 2009 promise to halve the deficit by the end of his first term.
White House officials described the budget as a continuation of two major speeches given recently by the president — one in Kansas where he promised Americans a “fair shot,” and last month’s State of the Union.
