WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama unveiled a $3.8 trillion spending plan on Monday for 2013 that seeks to achieve $4 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade but does little to restrain growth in the government’s health benefit programs.
Obama’s new budget was immediately attacked by Republicans as a retread of previously rejected ideas.
The president would achieve $1.5 trillion of the deficit reductions in tax increases on the wealthy and by removing certain corporate tax breaks.
Obama rejected GOP charges of class warfare. In his budget message, he said, “This is not about class warfare. This is about the nation’s welfare.”
In a message that repeated populist themes Obama also sounded in his State of the Union address, the president defended his proposed tax increases on the wealthy, saying it was important that the burden of getting deficits under control be a shared responsibility.
“This is about making fair choices that benefit not just the people who have done fantastically well over the last few decades but that also benefit the middle class, those fighting to get into the middle class and the economy as a whole,” Obama said.
Read tomorrow's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.
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