President Barack Obama sent a budget to Congress Monday with ambitious strategies to strengthen America’s middle class. Chief among his proposals are plans to raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations and to use that money to spend a record $4 trillion on “domestic and military programs” to do things like rebuild roads and bridges, the Associated Press reports.
The spending proposal, if approved, would be implemented in the 2016 budget year. It’s an initiative that Obama is describing as “practical, not partisan,” AP reports. The proposal is expected to draw the ire of Republicans, who will take issue with the hefty tax increases for the rich, totaling $2 trillion.
“The president is advocating more spending, more taxes and more debt,” House Speaker John Boehner complained, going on to say that Obama’s spending proposal is "not a serious plan for America’s fiscal future.”
Obama would not only tax the highest-earning people to fund initiatives to help the middle class. He’s also proposing to raise taxes on a pack of cigarettes from $1.01 to $1.95, AP explains.
The GOP said that the budget proposals it will release this spring will balance the budget within 10 years, reduce the “the explosive growth of government-benefit programs” and “reform the loophole-cluttered tax code,” according to AP.
Read more at the Associated Press.