When President Obama submitted his proposed budget one year ago, he claimed that he wanted to do away with the “mindless austerity” of the sequestration, which had provided some measure of limitation on government spending. Then in December, aided and abetted by a Republican-controlled Congress, he replaced mindless austerity with clueless profligacy.

Now he puts forth a budget for the 2017 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, that calls for $4.15 trillion in spending, a $223 billion increase over the current year’s budget.

The new spending plan contains $3 trillion in proposed tax hikes over the next 10 years, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. The most controversial of these is a $10.25-per-barrel oil tax, which would be used to fund “clean” transit projects and low-carbon technologies such as self-driving cars, which the private sector is already rapidly developing. With oil prices currently around $30 a barrel, that is a roughly 35 percent tax, which would translate to a projected price increase of about 25 cents per gallon at the pump.

The president’s budget message espouses his wish list, from “green energy” subsidies to universal preschool to high-speed rail and increased transit funding to $4 billion for a K-12 computer science program to two years of “free” community college to apprenticeship programs to “encouraging” state paid leave policies – none of which is the province of federal, state and local governments.

It is understandable that a lame-duck president with a somewhat hostile Congress would advance a budget sprinkled with fairy dust, but Obama’s proposal should not be taken seriously with regard to fiscal responsibility.


Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.

Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.