How Obama wants to spend Americans' money next year: an agency-by-agency look

President Barack Obama’s new $4 trillion budget plan is distributed by

the Senate Budget Committee as it arrives on Capitol Hill in Washington,

early Monday, Feb. 02, 2015. The fiscal blueprint for the budget year

that begins Oct. 1, seeks to raise taxes on wealthier Americans and

corporations and use the extra income to lift the fortunes of families

who have felt squeezed during tough economic times. Republicans, who now

hold the power in Congress, are accusing the president of seeking to

revert to tax-and-spend policies that will harm the economy while

failing to do anything about soaring spending on government benefit

programs. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Excerpt from therepublic.com 

WASHINGTON — Sure, $4 trillion sounds like a lot. But it goes fast when your budget stretches from aging highways to medical care to space travel and more.

Here’s an agency-by-agency look at how President Barack Obama would spend Americans’ money in the 2016 budget year beginning Oct. 1:

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HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Up or down? Up 4.3 percent

What’s new? Medicare could negotiate prices for cutting-edge drugs.

Highlights:

— The president’s proposed health care budget asks

Congress to authorize Medicare to negotiate what it pays for high-cost

prescription drugs and for biologics, including advanced medications for

diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis. Currently, private insurers

bargain on behalf of Medicare beneficiaries. Drug makers have beaten

back prior proposals to give Medicare direct pricing power. But the

introduction of a $1,000-a-pill hepatitis-C drug last year may have

shifted the debate.

— Tobacco taxes would nearly double, to extend health

insurance for low-income children. The federal cigarette tax would rise

from just under $1.01 per pack to about $1.95 per pack. Taxes on other

tobacco products also would go up. That would provide financing to pay

for the Children’s Health Insurance Program through 2019. The

federal-state program serves about 8 million children, and funding

technically expires Sept. 30. The tobacco tax hike would take effect in

2016.

— Starting in 2019, the proposal increases Medicare

premiums for high-income beneficiaries and adds charges for new

enrollees. The charges for new enrollees include a home health

copayment, changes to the Part B deductible, and a premium surcharge for

seniors who’ve also purchased a kind of supplemental insurance whose

generous benefits are seen as encouraging overuse of Medicare services.

— There’s full funding for ongoing implementation of Obama’s health care law.

—The plan would end the budget sequester’s 2 percent

cut in Medicare payments to service providers and repeal another budget

formula that otherwise will result in sharply lower payments for

doctors. But what one hand gives, the other hand takes away. The budget

also calls for Medicare cuts to hospitals, insurers, drug companies and

other service providers.

The numbers:

Total spending: $1.1 trillion, including about $1

trillion on benefit programs including Medicare and Medicaid, already

required by law.

Spending that needs Congress’ annual approval: $80 billion.

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NASA

Up or down? Up 2.9 percent

What’s new? Not much. Just more money for planned missions.


Highlights:

—The exploration budget — which includes NASA’s plans

to grab either an asteroid or a chunk of an asteroid and haul it closer

to Earth for exploration by astronauts — gets a slight bump in funding.

But the details within the overall exploration proposal are key. The

Obama plan would put more money into cutting-edge non-rocket space

technology; give a 54 percent spending jump to money sent to private

firms to develop ships to taxi astronauts to the International Space

Station; and cut by nearly 12 percent spending to build the next

government big rocket and capsule to carry astronauts. Congress in the

past has cut the president’s proposed spending on the private firms and

technology and boosted the spending on the government big rocket and

capsule.

—The president’s 0.8 percent proposed increase in NASA

science spending is his first proposed jump in that category in four

years. It’s also the first proposed jump in years in exploring other

planets. It includes extra money for a 2020 unmanned Martian rover and

continued funding for an eventual robotic mission to Jupiter’s moon

Europa. But the biggest extra science spending goes to study Earth.

— Obama’s budget would cut aeronautics research 12

percent from current spending and slash NASA’s educational spending by

25 percent. It also slightly trims the annual spending to build the

over-budget multi-billion dollar James Webb Space Telescope, which will eventually replace the Hubble Space Telescope and is scheduled to launch in 2018.

The numbers:

Total spending: $18.5 billion

Spending that needs Congress’ annual approval: $18.5 billion

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TRANSPORTATION

Up or down? Up 31 percent

What’s new? A plan to tackle an estimated $2 trillion

in deferred maintenance for the nation’s aging infrastructure by

boosting highway and transit spending to $478 billion over six years.

Highlights:

— The six-year highway and transit plan would get a

one-time $238 billion infusion from the general treasury. Some of the

money would be offset by taxing the profits of U.S. companies that

haven’t been paying taxes on income made overseas. That infusion comes

on top of the $35 billion a year that normally comes from gasoline and

diesel taxes and other transportation fees.

— The proposal also includes tax incentives to

encourage private investment in infrastructure, and an infrastructure

investment bank to help finance major transportation projects.

— The new infrastructure investment would be

front-loaded. The budget proposes to spend the money over six years and

pay for the programs over 10 years.

— The proposal also includes a new Interagency

Infrastructure Permitting Improvement Center to coordinate efforts

across nearly 20 federal agencies and bureaus to speed up the permitting

process. For example, the Coast Guard, Corps of Engineers and

Transportation Department are trying to synchronize their reviews of

projects such as bridges that cross navigation channels.

The numbers:

Total spending: $94.5 billion, including more than $80

billion already required by law, mostly for highway and transit aid to

states and improvement grants to airports.

Spending that needs Congress’ annual approval: $14.3 billion.

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Associated Press writers Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Seth Borenstein, Joan Lowy and Connie Cass contributed to this report.

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How Obama wants to spend Americans' money next year: an agency-by-agency look